Rupi Kaur: Milk and Honey

for

the arms

that hold me

my heart woke me crying last night

how can i help i begged

my heart said

write the book

contents

the hurting

the loving

the breaking

the healing

a letter

about the writer

about the book

how is it so easy for you

to be kind to people he asked

milk and honey dripped

from my lips as i answered

cause people have not

been kind to me

the first boy that kissed me

held my shoulders down

like the handlebars of

the first bicycle

he ever rode

i was five

he had the smell of

starvation on his lips

which he picked up from

his father feasting on his mother at 4 a.m.

he was the first boy

to teach me my body was

for giving to those that wanted

that i should feel anything

less than whole

and my god

did i feel as empty

as his mother at 4:25 a.m.

it is your blood

in my veins

tell me how i’m

supposed to forget

the therapist places

the doll in front of you

it is the size of girls

your uncles like touching

point to where his hands were

you point to the spot

between its legs the one

he fingered out of you

like a confession

how’re you feeling

you pull the lump

in your throat out

with your teeth

and say fine

numb really

- midweek sessions

he was supposed to be

the first male love of your life

you still search for him

everywhere

- father

you were so afraid

of my voice

i decided to be

afraid of it too

she was a rose

in the hands of those

who had no intention

of keeping her

every time you

tell your daughter

you yell at her

out of love

you teach her to confuse

anger with kindness

which seems like a good idea

till she grows up to

trust men who hurt her

cause they look so much

like you

- to fathers with daughters

i’ve had sex she said

but i don’t know

what making love

feels like

if i knew what

safety looked like

i would have spent

less time falling into

arms that were not

sex takes the consent of two

if one person is lying there not doing anything

cause they are not ready

or not in the mood

or simply don’t want to

yet the other is having sex

with their body it’s not love

it is rape

the idea that we are

so capable of love

but still choose

to be toxic

there is no bigger illusion in the world

than the idea that a woman will

bring dishonor into a home

if she tries to keep her heart

and her body safe

you pinned

my legs to

the ground

with your feet

and demanded

i stand up

the rape will

tear you

in half

but it

will not

end you

you have sadness

living in places

sadness shouldn’t live

a daughter should

not have to

beg her father

for a relationship

trying to convince myself

i am allowed

to take up space

is like writing with

my left hand

when i was born

to use my right

- the idea of shrinking is hereditary

you tell me to quiet down cause

my opinions make me less beautiful

but i was not made with a fire in my belly

so i could be put out

i was not made with a lightness on my tongue

so i could be easy to swallow

i was made heavy

half blade and half silk

difficult to forget and not easy

for the mind to follow

he guts her

with his fingers

like he’s scraping

the inside of a

cantaloupe clean

your mother

is in the habit of

offering more love

than you can carry

your father is absent

you are a war

the border between two countries

the collateral damage

the paradox that joins the two

but also splits them apart

emptying out of my mother’s belly

was my first act of disappearance

learning to shrink for a family

who likes their daughters invisible

was the second

the art of being empty

is simple

believe them when they say

you are nothing

repeat it to yourself

like a wish

i am nothing

i am nothing

i am nothing

so often

the only reason you know

you’re still alive is from the

heaving of your chest

- the art of being empty

you look just like your mother

i guess i do carry her tenderness well

you both have the same eyes

cause we are both exhausted

and the hands

we share the same wilting fingers

but that rage your mother doesn’t wear that anger

you’re right

this rage is the one thing

i get from my father

(homage to warsan shire’s inheritance )

when my mother opens her mouth

to have a conversation at dinner

my father shoves the word hush

between her lips and tells her to

never speak with her mouth full

this is how the women in my family

learned to live with their mouths closed

our knees

pried open

by cousins

and uncles

and men

our bodies touched

by all the wrong people

that even in a bed full of safety

we are afraid

father. you always call to say nothing in particular. you ask what i’m doing or where i am and when the silence stretches like a lifetime between us i scramble to find questions to keep the conversation going. what i long to say most is. i understand this world broke you. it has been so hard on your feet. i don’t blame you for not knowing how to remain soft with me. sometimes i stay up thinking of all the places you are hurting which you’ll never care to mention. i come from the same aching blood. from the same bone so desperate for attention i collapse in on myself. i am your daughter. i know the small talk is the only way you know how to tell me you love me. cause it is the only way i know how to tell you.

you plough into me with two fingers and i am mostly shocked. it feels like rubber against an open wound. i do not like it. you begin pushing faster and faster. but i feel nothing. you search my face for a reaction so i begin acting like the naked women in the videos you watch when you think no one’s looking. i imitate their moans. hollow and hungry. you ask if it feels good and i say yes so quickly it sounds rehearsed. but the acting. you do not notice.

i can’t tell if my mother is

terrified or in love with

my father it all

looks the same

i flinch when you touch me

i fear it is him

when my mother was pregnant

with her second child i was four

i pointed at her swollen belly confused at how

my mother had gotten so big in such little time

my father scooped me in his tree trunk arms and

said the closest thing to god on this earth

is a woman’s body it’s where life comes from

and to have a grown man tell me something

so powerful at such a young age

changed me to see the entire universe

rested at my mother’s feet

i struggle so deeply

to understand

how someone can

pour their entire soul

blood and energy

into someone

without wanting

anything in

return

- i will have to wait till i’m a mother

no

it won’t

be love at

first sight when

we meet it’ll be love

at first remembrance cause