Rupi Kaur: Milk and Honey

and thinking

you could have me

when it was convenient

and leave when it was not

how can i write

if he took my hands

with him

neither of us is happy

but neither of us wants to leave

so we keep breaking one another

and calling it love

we began

with honesty

let us end

in it too

- us

your voice

alone

drives me

to tears

i don’t know why

i split myself open

for others knowing

sewing myself up

hurts this much

afterward

people go

but how

they left

always stays

love is not cruel

we are cruel

love is not a game

we have made a game

out of love

how can our love die

if it’s written

in these pages

even after the hurt

the loss

the pain

the breaking

your body is still

the only one

i want to be

undressed under

the night after you left

i woke up so broken

the only place to put the pieces

were the bags under my eyes

stay

i whispered

as you

shut the door behind you

i am confident i am over you. so much that some mornings i wake up with a smile on my face and my hands pressed together thanking the universe for pulling you out of me. thank god i cry. thank god you left. i would not be the empire i am today if you had stayed.

but then.

there are some nights i imagine what i might do if you showed up. how if you walked into the room this very second every awful thing you’ve ever done would be tossed out the closest window and all the love would rise up again. it would pour through my eyes as if it never really left in the first place. as if it’s been practicing how to stay silent so long only so it could be this loud on your arrival. can someone explain that. how even when the love leaves. it doesn’t leave. how even when i am so past you. i am so helplessly brought back to you.

he isn’t coming back

whispered my head

he has to

sobbed my heart

- wilting

i don’t want to be friends

i want all of you

- more

i am losing parts of you like i lose eyelashes

unknowingly and everywhere

you cannot leave

and have me too

i cannot exist in

two places at once

- when you ask if we can still be friends

i am water

soft enough

to offer life

tough enough

to drown it away

what i miss most is how you loved me. but what i didn’t know was how you loved me had so much to do with the person i was. it was a reflection of everything i gave to you. coming back to me. how did i not see that. how. did i sit here soaking in the idea that no one else would love me that way. when it was i that taught you. when it was i that showed you how to fill. the way i needed to be filled. how cruel i was to myself. giving you credit for my warmth simply because you had felt it. thinking it was you who gave me strength. wit. beauty. simply because you recognized it. as if i was already not these things before i met you. as if i did not remain all these once you left.

you leave

but you don’t stay gone

why do you do that

why do you

abandon the thing you want to keep

why do you linger

in a place you do not want to stay

why do you think it’s okay to do both

go and return all at once

i will tell you about selfish people. even when they know they will hurt you they walk into your life to taste you because you are the type of being they don’t want to miss out on. you are too much shine to not be felt. so when they have gotten a good look at everything you have to offer. when they have taken your skin your hair your secrets with them. when they realize how real this is. how much of a storm you are and it hits them.

that is when the cowardice sets in. that is when the person you thought they were is replaced by the sad reality of what they are. that is when they lose every fighting bone in their body and leave after saying you will find better than me.

you will stand there naked with half of them still hidden somewhere inside you and sob. asking them why they did it. why they forced you to love them when they had no intention of loving you back and they’ll say something along the lines of i just had to try. i had to give it a chance. it was you after all.

but that isn’t romantic. it isn’t sweet. the idea that they were so engulfed by your existence they had to risk breaking it for the sake of knowing they weren’t the one missing out. your existence meant that little next to their curiosity of you.

that is the thing about selfish people. they gamble entire beings. entire souls to please their own. one second they are holding you like the world in their lap and the next they have belittled you to a mere picture. a moment. something of the past. one second. they swallow you up and whisper they want to spend the rest of their life with you. but the moment they sense fear. they are already halfway out the door. without having the nerve to let you go with grace. as if the human heart means that little to them.

and after all this. after all of the taking. the nerve. isn’t it sad and funny how people have more guts these days to undress you with their fingers than they do to pick up the phone and call. apologize. for the loss. and this is how you lose her.

- selfish

to do list (after the breakup):

1. take refuge in your bed.

2. cry. till the tears stop (this will take a few days).

3. don’t listen to slow songs.

4. delete their number from your phone even though it is memorized on your fingertips.

5. don’t look at old photos.

6. find the closest ice cream shop and treat yourself to two scoops of mint chocolate chip. the mint will calm your heart. you deserve the chocolate.

7. buy new bed sheets.

8. collect all the gifts, t-shirts, and everything with their smell on it and drop it off at a donation center.

9. plan a trip.

10. perfect the art of smiling and nodding when someone brings their name up in conversation.

11. start a new project.

12. whatever you do. do not call.

13. do not beg for what does not want to stay.

14. stop crying at some point.

15. allow yourself to feel foolish for believing you could’ve built the rest of your life in someone else’s stomach.

16. breathe.

the way they

leave

tells you

everything

perhaps

i don’t deserve

nice things

cause i am paying

for sins i don’t

remember

the thing about writing is

i can’t tell if it’s healing

or destroying me

do not bother holding on to

that thing that does not want you

- you cannot make it stay

you must enter a relationship

with yourself

before anyone else

accept that you deserve more

than painful love

life is moving

the healthiest thing

for your heart is

to move with it

it is a part of the

human experience to feel pain

do not be afraid

open yourself to it

- evolving

loneliness is a sign you are in desperate need of yourself

you are in the habit

of co-depending

on people to

make up for what

you think you lack

who tricked you

into believing

another person

was meant to complete you

when the most they can do is complement

do not look for healing

at the feet of those

who broke you

if you were born with

the weakness to fall

you were born with

the strength to rise

perhaps the saddest of all

are those who live waiting

for someone they’re not

sure exists