by Rupi Kaur
i’m tired of buying products and services
that don’t make me feel any better
- empty promises
i don’t care about perfection
i’d rather roll deep
in the messiness of life
we think we are lost
while our fuller
found and complete selves
are somewhere in the future
we get on our hands and knees
thinking self-improvement will
help us reach them
but this finding ourselves bullshit
is never going to end
i’m tired of putting off living until
i have more information on who i am
i’m a new person every month
always becoming and unbecoming
only to become again
our fuller selves are not off in the future
they’re right here
in the only moment that exists
i don’t need fixing
i will be searching for answers my whole life
not because i’m a half-formed thing
but because i’m brilliant enough to keep growing
everything necessary to live a vivid life
already exists in me
- i am complete simply because i am imperfect
productivity is not how much
work i do in a day
but how well i balance
what i need to stay healthy
- being productive is knowing when to rest
i have to honor my mind and body
if i want to sustain this journey
- life
no one is qualified to decide your worth
you wake up and live your life every day
yours is the only opinion of you
that matters
little poet
it seems like the more words you write
the more you think
it is you writing them
why do you think you’re in control
didn’t the words come spilling
out of you the first time
pouring without permission
and now you’re trying to
make them work for you
but magic doesn’t move like that
your rushing is
suffocating the masterpieces
baking inside you
your job is to
show up for the process
be patient and when it’s time
the universe will use you again
- inspiration
if you tried
and didn’t end up
where you wanted to go
that’s still progress
quiet down i begged my mind
your overthinking is
robbing us of joy
not everything you do has
to be self-improving
you are not a machine
you are a person
without rest
your work can never be full
without play
your mind can never be nourished
- balance
play is when we escape time
if you want to be creative
you need to learn how to
do stuff that has no purpose
art isn’t made by
working all the time
first you’ve got to
go out and live
- the art will come
get out of your own way
get out of your own way
get out of your own way
i’m done trying to
prove myself
to myself
i became confident
once i decided that having fun
was far more important than
my fear of looking silly
- dancing in public
we’ve worked so hard
to be here
we can afford to
slow down and enjoy the view
i’m waking up
from the longest night of my life
it’s been years since i’ve seen the sun
- awakening
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
- birth
i paid in blood to be here. i paid with a childhood littered with bigger monsters than you. i’ve been beaten into a silence more times than i’ve been embraced on this earth. you haven’t seen what i’ve seen. my rock bottom went so deep i’m pretty sure it was hell. i spent a decade climbing out of it. my hands blistered. my feet swelled. my mind said i can’t take it anymore. i told my mind you better get yourself together. we came here for joy. and we are going to feel all of it. i’ve been hunted. killed. and walked back to earth. i snapped the neck off every beast that thought it could. and you want to take my seat. the one i built with the story of my life. honey. you won’t fit. i juggle clowns like you. i pick my teeth with fools like you for fun. i have played and slept and danced with bigger devils.
on days you can’t hear yourself
slow down to
let your mind and body
catch up to each other
- stillness
what a relief
to discover that
the aches i thought
were mine alone
are also felt by
so many others
my body renews itself in waves of ocean and blood
i have a very complicated relationship
with the country i was born in
our men were
slaughtered in those streets
our women were raped
while thousands were tortured
and disappeared by police
the indian state denies what they did
but no amount of yoga or bollywood
can make us forget the
sikh genocide they orchestrated
- never forget 1984
i will never be quiet
about the way my
people resisted
so i could be free
our wounds are the reason
i started writing poetry
every word
i’ve ever written was to
lead us back into our arms
they could take away
everything we have
and we’d conjure this
beautiful life up all over again
with the bones in our backs
building an empire
from the ground up
is exactly what we’re good at
ours must be
a politic of revolution
freedom can’t exist
until the most disadvantaged are free
don’t sleep on
the doormat of your potential
waiting for things to happen
when you could be
the thing that happens
you are one person
but when you move
an entire community
walks through you
- you go nowhere alone
by virtue of living
in a racist world
nonblack people are
raised to be antiblack
we are all taught that
lighter is better
- undoin
g
your voice
is your sovereignty
- 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 world is changing
can you feel it
undressing itself and slipping into
something uncomfortable
and more just
- waves
i’m not interested
in a feminism that thinks
simply placing women at the top
of oppressive systems is progress
- not your convenient figurehead
the future
world of our dreams
can’t be built on the
corruptions of the past
- tear it down
today i saw myself for the first time
when i dusted off
the mirror of my mind
and the woman looking back
took my breath away
who was this beautiful beastling
this extra-celestial earthling
i touched my face and my reflection
touched the woman of my dreams
all her gorgeous smirking back at me
my knees surrendered to the earth
as i wept and sighed at how
i’d gone my whole life
being myself
but not seeing myself
spent decades living inside my body
never left it once
yet managed to miss all its miracles
isn’t it funny how you can
occupy a space without
being in touch with it
how it took so long for me
to open the eyes of my eyes
embrace the heart of my heart
kiss the soles of my swollen feet
and hear them whisper
thank you
thank you
thank you
for noticing
you have everything to gain
from believing in yourself
yet you spend all your time with self-doubt
there is a conversation
happening inside you
pay deep attention
to what your inner world
is saying
i stopped resisting
the unpleasant feelings
and accepted that happiness
has nothing to do with
feeling good all the time
- balance
it’s easy to love
the nice things about ourselves
but true self-love is
embracing the difficult parts
that live in all of us
- acceptance
can you hear the women who came before me
five hundred thousand voices
ringing through my neck
as if this were all a stage built for them
i can’t tell which parts of me are me
and which parts are them
can you see them taking over my spirit
shaking out of my limbs
to do everything
they couldn’t do
when they were alive
i dive into the well of my body
and end up in another world
everything i need
already exists in me
there’s no need
to look anywhere else
- home
oh but the pussy is brave
lest we forget
how much pain
the pussy can take
how much pleasure it delivers
unto itself and others
remember
how it spit you out
without a flinch
now here you are
using the word pussy
like an insult
when you’re not even
strong enough to be one
live loud and proud like you deserve
and reject their bullshit definition
of what a woman should look like
women have been starved of space for so long
when one of us finally
makes it into the arena
we get scared that another woman
will take our spot
but space doesn’t work like that
look at all the men in the arena getting stronger
as their numbers multiply
more women in the arena means
more room for all of us to rise
- stronger together
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.
why escape yourself
when you are so beautiful
get closer to your shine
on days i could not move
it was women
who came to water my feet
until i was strong enough
to stand
it was women
who nourished me
back to life
- sisters
make it a point
to love yourself
as fiercely as you do other people
- commitment
it shouldn’t affect anyone
what we do with our bodies
least of all those who haven’t
walked a day in our shoes
give me laugh lines and wrinkles
i want proof of the jokes we shared
engrave the lines into my face like
the roots of a tree that grow deeper
with each passing year
i want sunspots as souvenirs
for the beaches we laid on
i want to look like i was
never afraid to let the world
take me by the hand
and show me what it’s made of
i want to leave this place knowing
i did something with my body
other than trying to
make it look perfect
i can’t take my eyes off of me
now that i see myself
i can’t take my mind off of me
can’t believe the tricks
my hands have been up to
the sermons i spoke into existence
the mountains i crushed
with my fingers
and the mountains i built
from all the shit
people tried to
stone me to death with
- warrior
i often daydream about the woman i’ll be
when i leave the rush of
my insecure twenties
/>
and pick up self-assurance on the way
i can’t wait to make
my eighteen-year-old self jealous
of the hell i raise
roaring into my thirties and forties
my soul becoming
more potent with age
at fifty i’ll sit with
my wrinkles and silver hair
laughing about the adventures
we’ve had together
talking about the countless more
in the decades ahead
what a privilege it is
to grow into the
finest version of myself
- aging
be here
in what needs to be done today
- that’s how you honor tomorrow
if the devil hadn’t
pushed you into a corner
and forced you to break its neck
how would you have known
you were this strong
there are miracles in me
waiting their turn to happen
i am never giving up on myself
you do not belong to the future or the past
- you belong right here
get loud
say what you need to say
it feels good to reclaim your life
the way we rise
from every sorrow in life
is the most gorgeous thing i’ve seen
you are a soul. a world. a portal. a spirit. you are never alone. you are organs and blood and flesh and muscle. a colony of miracles weaving into each other.