Rupi Kaur's milk and honey is a beautiful poetry book that describes perfectly the details of love, loss, trauma, healing and femininity. It is a great and simple read, even if you aren't necessarily into poetry. While reading this book, I realized that I connected to so many of Kaur's poems. You know that feeling where something connects to you so much you feel like it was written for you? That's how I felt reading the pages that Kaur poured her absolute heart into. I also realized that a lot of the poems connected to a personal situation that occurred in my life. Here are the poems that stood out to me the most (in milk and honey style) for when a boy tells you he loves you but doesn't.
1. seventy three.
"i always
get myself
into this mess
i always let him
tell me i am beautiful
and half believe it
i always jump thinking
he will catch me
at the fall
i am hopelessly
a lover and
a dreamer and
that will be the
death of me"
2. seventy four.
"when my mother says i deserve better
i snap to your defense out of habit
he still loves me i shout
she looks at me with defeated eyes
the way a parent looks at their child
when they know this is the type of pain
even they can't fix
and says
it means nothing to me if he loves you
if he can't do a single wretched thing about it"
3. seventy six.
"you said. if it is meant to be. fate will bring us back together. for a second i wonder if you are really that naive. if you really believe fate works like that. as if it lives in the sky staring down at us. as if it has five fingers and spends its time placing us like pieces of chess. as if it is not the choices we make. who taught you that. tell me. who convinced you. you've been given a heart and a mind that isn't yours to use. that your actions do not define what will become of you. i want to scream and shout it's us you fool. we're the only ones that can bring us back together. but instead i sit quietly, smiling softly through quivering lips thinking. isn't it such a tragic thing. when you can see it so clearly but the other person doesn't."
4. seventy seven.
"don't mistake
salt for sugar
if he wants to be with you
he will
it's that simple"
5. eighty six.
"it must hurt to know
i am your most
beautiful
regret"
6. one hundred four.
"i am undoing you
from my skin"
7. one hundred twenty six.
"i don't want to be friends
i want all of you
-more"
8. one hundred twenty eight.
"you cannot leave
and have me too
i cannot exist in
two places at once
-when you ask if we can still be friends"
9. one hundred thirty one.
"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"
10. one hundred forty one.
"do not bother holding on to
that thing that does not want you
-you cannot make it stay"
11. one hundred forty three.
"accept that you deserve more
than painful love
life is moving
the healthiest thing
for your heart is
to move with it"
12. one hundred fifty four.
"there is a difference between
someone telling you
they love you and
them actually loving you"
Rupi Kaur has a way of saying everything I have ever felt but have never vocalized. I'm glad I could find closure in the most beautiful way possible.
