Home Body

by Rupi Kaur

my mind keeps running off to dark corners and coming back with reasons for why i am not enough

i’ll be quiet when we can say sexual assault and they stop screaming liar

depression is silent you never hear it coming and suddenly it’s the loudest voice in your head

if you could accept that perfection is impossible what would you stop obsessing over

i am trusting the uncertainty and believing i will end up somewhere right and good

i’m either romanticizing the past or i’m busy worrying about the future it’s no wonder i don’t feel alive i’m not living in the only moment that’s real - present

how can i be so cruel to myself when i’m doing the best i can - be gentle

the universe has prepared you to handle this

i am not broken because of the depression i am not a lesser version of myself because of the anxiety i am a whole complete and complicated person - full

i’m breathing aren’t i that’s gotta be a sign that the universe is on my side if i’ve made it this far i can make it all the way

imagine what we could accomplish if we didn’t have to spend our energy protecting ourselves from society’s rapist problem

what we lived through is living in us

i am not a victim of my life what i went through pulled a warrior out of me and it is my greatest honor to be her

if you’re waiting for them to make you feel like you’re enough you’ll be waiting a long time

i’m too in love with my life to be spilling all over the floor for the next man who gives me butterflies when i could look in the mirror and take my own breath away

nothing can replace how the women in my life make me feel

i’m careful about who i spend my energy on - i know my worth

capitalism got inside my head and made me think my only value is how much i produce for people to consume capitalism got inside my head and made me think i am of worth as long as i am working

magic moves by the laws of nature and nature has its own clock magic happens when we play when we escape daydream and imagine that’s where everything with the power to fulfill us is waiting on its knees for us

it breaks me into pieces to hear about every person who grinds for less than what they’re worth how do we sleep at night knowing the systems we uphold treat the foundations of our society as second-class citizens when they are the reason the wheels of this world stay turning

our elders are not disposable

the land sprawled its limbs and said put your feet up the trees said we will give you life the air said breathe me in the earth said take care of what takes care of you and we turned our backs on all of them - betrayal

we’ve ruined our only home for convenience and profit neither of which will be useful once the earth can’t breathe

being the loudest on earth’s playground doesn’t make us any more important than the dirt we crush beneath our feet we are nothing except air and fire and water and soil we are a people who forget what we are made of a people who talk about the weather as if it’s mundane and not magic as if the oceans are not holy water as if the sky is not a vision as if the animals are not our siblings as if nature is not god and rain is not god’s tears and we are not god’s children as if god is not the earth itself

i was trying to fit into a system that left me empty - capitalism

our souls ache for community our deepest being craves one another we need to be connected to feel alive

i don’t care about perfection i’d rather roll deep in the messiness of life

you can’t quiet a woman who was born muzzled

i fell from the mouth of my mother’s legs into the palms of this world with god herself raging in me

ours must be a politic of revolution freedom can’t exist until the most disadvantaged are free

you look tired he says i turn to him and say yeah i’m exhausted i’ve been fighting misogyny for decades how else do you expect me to look

no one on this planet is in more denial than the white man who regardless of all the evidence in front of him still thinks racism and sexism and all the world’s pain don’t exist

the future world of our dreams can’t be built on the corruptions of the past

i am not interested in a feminism that excludes trans women

he says you’re opinionated as if it’s an insult to have ideas so big he chokes on the size of them - never be quiet

look for the women in the room who have less space than you listen hear them and act on what they’re saying - amplify indigenous. trans. black. brown. women of color voices.

i want to leave this place knowing i did something with my body other than trying to make it look perfect

there are days when the light flickers and then i remember i am the light i go in and switch it back on - power