"You look like you smell of
honey and no pain
let me have a taste of that."
It seems to be some kind of instinct as humans to find ourselves searching for something to hold onto, to ground us, to reassure us. The reasons behind this are unfathomable, ranging anywhere from love to hate to guidance to faith, etc. As a young college girl, I found myself searching for something to give me answers, to explain the heartaches and the waiting and the games, something to relate to, something to understand. I was handed "Milk and Honey" by Rupi Kaur, and in it I found myself in ways I couldn't imagine.
Kaur gave us a poetic microscope into her life, separated into four chapters of the hurting, the loving, the breaking and the healing. As the reader, I found myself clinging to every word, holding the written letters so tightly to my chest as if i could imprint them onto my heart. The hurting is blunt and brutal, an excruciating realization of the things others will do with lust and power as a disgrace to any precious woman's body. The loving was soft and gentle, and wild and raw. It reflected the feelings and wonders of what it is like to find the other part of you that compliments you so well and lights you on fire in ways you didn't know you needed. It's a house of cards at mercy to the wind and a rushing hurricane all at the same time. The breaking was an all-too-familiar concept that any girl can relate to. It rips and tears, leaving a stain on the inside that can never come out. It's real and truthful, something we find ourselves searching for in the men we choose, only to discover it after they have left us for another woman.
The healing was a chapter I struggled to read through. It forced my eyes to drink in every line, every word, my soul parched and this seemed to be the only way to quench it. The healing gave me myself back, my own me, something I had been searching for without knowing until it was lightly gifted to me with the untying poems of this book. I unraveled and rebuilt who I am. I uncovered answers to questions I was hiding even from myself, only to feel the relief of it seeping from my shoulders after I had closed the book.
"Of course i want to be successful
but i don't crave success for me
I need to be successful to gain
enough milk and honey
to help those around
me succeed."
The book that made my heart weep and moan, laugh and joyful, quiet and still is a book that at times is crude and vulgar; at times is unnerving and painful; at times honest and kind, awakening and freeing, comforting and soothing. Kaur gave me her heart and in doing so returned me mine. Every girl should reclaim what is rightfully her's, and in doing so read "Milk and Honey."
