Rupi Kaur's Milk and Honey is a popular book that includes poems about different hardships and joys throughout our lives.
Most will compliment this book saying "It's the best book I've read.." But for me, a summary and overall review would take 606 words. Which is how many words are in this review.
Milk and Honey changed my life, and this is how it could change yours too...
I'll be honest, when I picked up this book, I did so because I saw it all over my tumblr dash and the cover looked reallty pretty. I wanted to see what the hype was about, so I went to the bookstore and spent $10. I was not expecting to have my life turned inside out and upside down.
At the time when I picked up Milk and Honey, I was struggling. Everyday was a challange and my brain was constantly clouded with negative thoughts and numbness. I was never happy and always walked around with sad eyes and sunken in cheekbones. I was in a horrible mental state and my relationships with others were suffering because of it.
I remember reading it for the first time in the bathtub, lukewarm water sloshing over my thighs and my hair sticking to the wall. I turned the first couple pages, not finding things interesting when the poems started to hit me one by one.
"She was a rose in the hands of those who had no intention of keeping her."
For days, I was sticking pink sticky notes to the pages and holding back the tears. This book understood me. It understood how hurt I was, how I was standing in a dark room, unable to see then demanded to find the broken peices of my body in the pitch black.
These were the words I needed. The words my psychologist never told me. The words I have never understood.
But I do now.
As pages kept turning and the book became a wild assortment of sticky notes poking out of nearly every page, I was changing. The poems awoken parts of me that had fallen asleep that Fall. They called to me in a way that made me want to get better.
The advice and soothing words and illistrations between the 196 pages gave me step-by-step instructions on how to crawl out of the hole I was in. Poem after poem, I was able to smile.
I realized that the only one that could save me was myself. I am the only one who can make this better. Yes, people can help. But I have the wheel of my mental illness and I am driving far, far away.
Rupi Kaur's second book is coming out this October, and I am beyond ecstatic to be able to sit and have words understand me again.
Milk and Honey will always hold a special place in my heart and the poems have sewn themselves into my soul and are now morals I live by everyday.
Thank you Rupi Kaur, for helping me get my shit together. For helping me stand up again. For helping me breathe again.
It is to her, I am forever thankful.
My copy of the book is now retired and resting peacefully on the bookshelves next to friends. It is a bit tired and old having gone through multiple readers and is exploading with sticky notes. But I will always go back to reread the pages highlighted.
All my love,
Madison.
