by Rupi Kaur
why do i hurt the ones
who want to lift me up and
worship the ones who crush me
- what made me like this
i don’t know what to do with a man
who wants to hold on to me
for the rest of our lives
i’m afraid i won’t find the one who sees me
and rushes to breathe me in
i have a fear of seeming too desperate
i’m scared i will be cheated on
with a woman more brilliant
more striking
more of me in every way
terrified this will confirm what i know already
that i am not enough for someone to stay
where is the burning match that will set me on fire
what if i’ve already walked by the one
on a street corner
what if i’ve already been with them
and ruined it
who will love me enough to
spend their energy getting close
to someone so inconsistent
what if the one i want
is someone who touches me and leaves
and the one who doesn’t leave
is someone i can’t stand touching me
will it always be bad timing
will i ever be sure
will i settle
will i be on my own forever
your partner is supposed to
enrich your life
not drain it
staying when it hurts is not love
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
the love of family
friends and community
is just as potent
as the love
of a romantic relationship
nothing can replace
how the women in my life
make me feel
it’s impossible
for one person to
fill you up
in all the ways
you need to be filled
your partner
can’t be your everything
i can live without romantic love
but i can’t survive without
the women i call friends
they know exactly what i need
before i even know i need it
the way we hold space
for each other is just different
a man can’t give me anything
i can’t give myself
- things i wish i could tell the younger me
masturbation
is meditation
in a world that doesn’t consider
my body to be mine
self-pleasure is an act
of self-preservation
when i’m feeling disconnected
i connect with my center
touch by touch
i drop back into myself
at the orgasm
i’m not going to pretend
to be less intelligent than i am
so a man can feel
more comfortable around me
the one i deserve
will see my greatness and
want to lift it higher
i want you to wipe away
everything you know about love
and start with one word
kindness
give it to them
let them give it to you
be two pillars
equal in your love
and you’ll carry empires on your backs
i wrap my holy legs
around his heavy head
and let his tongue swim
toward salvation
- baptize
i want someone who is
inspired by my brilliance
not threatened by it
look me in the eyes
when you’re down there
eating for your life
- i want you to see what you do to me
i’m careful about
who i spend my energy on
- i know my worth
my body is so hot from wanting you
i’m spilling by the time we take our clothes off
i want the kind of love that
transcends me
into another realm
i want you so deep
we enter the spirit world
go from being gentle to rough
i want eye contact
spread my legs to
opposite ends of the room
and look with your fingers
i want my soul to be touched
by the tip of yours
i want to come
out of this room
different people
- can you do that
there are years in me
that have not slept
i measure my self-worth
by how productive i’ve been
but no matter
how hard i work
i still feel inadequate
- productivity guilt
i fear that
my best years are behind me
and nothing beyond this point will add up
i have this productivity anxiety
that everyone else is working harder than me
and i’m going to be left behind
cause i’m not working fast enough
long enough
and i’m wasting my time
i don’t sit down to have breakfast
i take it to go
i call my mother when i’m free—otherwise
it takes too long to have a conversation
i put off everything that
won’t bring me closer to my dreams
as if the things i’m putting off
are not the dream themselves
isn’t the dream
that i have a mother to call
and a table to eat breakfast at
instead i’m lost in the sick need
to optimize every hour of my day
so i’m improving in some way
making money in some way
advancing my career in some way
because that’s what it takes
to be successful
right
i excavate my life
package it up
sell it to the world
and when they ask for more
i dig through bones
trying to write poems
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
i learned impatience from it
i learned self-doubt from it
learned to plant seeds in the ground
and expect flowers the next day
but magic
doesn’t work like that
magic doesn’t happen
cause i’ve figured out how to
pack more work in a day
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
- productivity anxiety
we can work
at our own pace
and still be
successful
while i was growing up
my dad worked six days a week
driving an eighteen-wheeler truck
from one end of the continent to the other
he’d come home
after a week on the road
while my siblings and i would be sleeping
the sound of the front door always woke me
the basement we lived in was small
i could hear mom in the kitchen
making him a fresh meal of dal and roti
dad would eat
shower
settle into bed
but as soon as his eyes drifted off
his boss would call and say
get back on the road again
and just like that
we’d catch a glimpse of dad leaving
when you’re an immigrant
you keep your head down and stay working
when you’re a refugee and
you don’t have papers
when they call you illegal
outsider
terrorist
towelhead
you work until your bones become dust
you are the only one you can count on
every time he started at a new company
he’d spend months working for free
during their mandatory “training” period
funny how they needed to train a man
who was fully licensed
qualified
and experienced
after the third month of
not taking a penny home
dad would demand compensation
and they’d offer him
five cents for every mile he drove
years ago while driving a load
from montreal to florida
he ended up at a hospital
somewhere in the middle of america
with his appendix moments away
from bursting
when the doctor told him
they had to get him into surgery immediately
he looked at her and said
i can’t afford it
can this wait until i get back home to canada
when do you get back home the doctor asked
in three days he responded
and she looked at him like he must
be out of his mind
luckily
she didn’t have it in her
to let him risk his life
she performed the surgery for free that night
and you want to know what my dad did
right after they stitched him up
he walked out of the hospital
climbed into his truck
finished the delivery
and spent three days driving back home
why would you put yourself through that i ask
he shrugs his shoulders and tells me
my boss wouldn’t get me a flight home
where would i leave my truck
i couldn’t drive back with a trailer full
of undelivered car parts
and risk losing my job
while listening to him
all i can think is that
no one should have to work to the bone like that
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
i want to give my dad
a lifetime of peace
for the lifetime he spent
on the road to feed us
i want him to know
what comfort feels like
i want him to see
he’s done enough
- a lifetime on the road
when the kids at school asked
where my mom worked
i lied and said at the factory
like all the other moms
i was too embarrassed to admit
she didn’t have a “real job”
even though “stay-at-home mom” meant
she was a full-time caregiver
driver
chef
secretary
tutor
cleaner
best friend
of four kids and
the world’s definition of a “real job”
couldn’t begin to cover all that
- value
we were always in survival mode
long after we didn’t need to be
- habit
i’m stuck in
this constant cycle
of running off to build my life
and running back cause
i feel guilty about not
spending enough time with them
- parent-guilt
i thought my brown immigrant body
should always work harder
than everyone else in the room
because that’s what made me valuable
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
i thought i could
accomplish my way
into being happy
but nothing on the outside
fulfilled me in the ways
it had promised
happiness grew old
waiting for me
and i grew old
searching for happiness
in places it did not live
our souls
will no
t be soothed
by what we achieve
how we look
or all the hard work we do
even if we managed to
make all the money in the world
we’d be left feeling empty for something
our souls ache for community
our deepest being craves one another
we need to be connected
to feel alive
i get so lost
in where i want to go
i forget that the place i’m in
is already quite magical
i miss the days my friends
knew every mundane detail about my life
and i knew every ordinary detail about theirs
adulthood has starved me of that consistency
that us
the walks around the block
the long conversations when we were
too lost in the moment to care what time it was
when we won and celebrated
when we failed and celebrated harder
when we were just kids
now we have our very important jobs
that fill up our very busy schedules
we compare calendars just to plan coffee dates
that one of us eventually cancels
cause adulthood is being too exhausted
to leave our apartments most days
i miss knowing i once belonged
to a group of people bigger than myself
that belonging made life easier to live
- friendship nostalgia
we already have the things that can complete us
they just aren’t things
they are people
and laughter and connection
- irreplaceable
you might have done
the external work
but your mind is starving
for internal attention
- listen
i’m throwing the whole concept of
commercialized self-help out altogether