If you’ve ever read Rupi Kaur’s books, you know she has a wondrous way with words. With each of her books, she details her experiences with femininity, love, heartbreak, healing, and strength. Her words showcase the cyclical nature of life – from the gentle wilting of a flower during the commencement of winter to its rebirth at the dawn of spring. Kaur turns tragic and traumatic memories into art and describes her journey to finding her inner strength. And through that journey come her words of wisdom:
1. Loneliness and solitude
“loneliness is a sign
you are in desperate
need of yourself.”
2. How to know when you've found "the one"
“they should feel like home
a place that grounds your life
where you go to take the day off
- the one”
3. Envy and resentment
“how do i shake this envy
when i see you doing well
sister how do i love myself enough to know
your accomplishments are not my failures
we are not each other’s competition”
4. Finding strength in weakness
“if you were born with the weakness to fall you were born with the strength to rise”
5. Independence in relationships
“i do not want to have you
to fill the empty parts of me
i want to be full on my own
i want to be so complete
i could light a whole city
and then
i want to have you
cause the two of us combined
could set it on fire”
6. The importance of father figures
“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.”
7. Motherhood and sacrifice
“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”
8. Fatherhood and significance
“the kindest words my father said to me
women like you drown oceans”
9. Fierceness and resilience
“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”
10. Finding strength in heartbreak
“what is stronger
than the human heart
which shatters over and over
and still lives”
11. Blooming where you're broken
“stay strong through your pain
grow flowers from it
you have helped me
grow flowers out of mine so
bloom beautifully
dangerously
loudly
bloom softly
however you need
just bloom”
12. Valuing intelligence over beauty
“i want to apologize to all the women i have called beautiful
before i’ve called them intelligent or brave
i am sorry i made it sound as though
something as simple as what you’re born with
is all you have to be proud of
when you have broken mountains with your wit
from now on i will say things like
you are resilient, or you are extraordinary
not because i don’t think you’re beautiful
but because i need you to know
you are more than that”
13. Reciprocity of love
“what if
there isn’t enough time
to give her what she deserves
do you think
if i begged the sky hard enough
my mother’s soul would
return to me as my daughter
so i can give her
the comfort she gave me
my whole life”
14. Power in femininity
“what is the greatest lesson a woman should learn
that since day one
she’s already had everything she needs within herself
it’s the world that convinced her she did not”
15. Privilege
“bombs brought entire cities
down to their knees today
refugees boarded boats knowing
their feet may never touch land again
police shot people dead for the color of their skin
last month i visited an orphanage of
abandoned babies left on the curbside like waste
later at the hospital i watched a mother
lose both her child and her mind
somewhere a lover died
how can i refuse to believe
my life is anything short of a miracle
if amidst all this chaos
i was given this life
- circumstances”
These quotes encompass the themes of abuse, sex, love, and femininity, but most importantly, all these quotes have the common thread of empowerment and self-realization. Rupi Kaur shows how self-love is more valuable than the love we get from others. She shows the process of her becoming whole again by learning how to love herself.
The beauty in poetry is in the fact that the smallest and slightest of phrases can leave chills down a reader's back based on their interpretation. When Rupi Kaur writes her poems detailing experiences in her life, her readers empathize and find their own meanings from them.
