Read-aloud:
Before I met you in between stanzas
I was a padlocked journal under my bed
My thoughts, suffocated by bedsheets
My meanderings, deprived of air
I killed my words
before they had a chance
at life
Brengartner
You is not a lover. Or anyone I’ve even met. But she changed my life, twice, in a faded-burgundy-musty-smelling tattered ottoman in the farthest corner of a Barnes and Noble bookstore.
Her name is Rupi Kaur.
I had just picked up a smooth-faced small black book and added it to the leaning tower of Pisa in my hands. I would sit in the corner - as I always did - and vet my choices. Limit the pile to two, I thought to myself.
Your book postured proudly on the top of my stack. Milk and Honey scribed in white. A book of poems with a title that made me long for a slow-to-rise-nowhere-to-be-tummy-full-of-waffles Sunday morning.
The never-been-opened-before-book creaked to life.
I flipped to the dedication page as I always do. Warmth kissed my fingertips where I traced your words. Pages whispered. I was mesmerized by the white space. Six lines of no more than seven words each perched in the corner like a hummingbird on vibrant blossoms. You wrote,
how is it so easy for you
to be kind to people he asked
milk and honey dripped
from my lips as I answered
cause people have not
been kind to me
Kaur
I read. I re-read. Again and again. Your words were intensely familiar. The manner you spoke them so succinctly, was foreign. With each pass, your poem shifted in and out of focus. By the time the fine print crystalized, I had a clarity of sight I’d never had before.
In that moment, an energy moved within me. Fragments of perception twirled and rearranged in the kaleidoscope of my mind. I was gifted the privilege to see clearly. Before those six lines, poetry was a shackled prisoner of prose. I exiled my poetry to the darkest place I knew before cold brick barriers turned into boundless horizon.
As I settled into the corner of your book in the corner of a store, those six lines were all it took for the shackles to dissipate like rain puddles in the afternoon heat. 32 words that could be spoken in just one breath. 32 words that painted the corner of a page a masterpiece. 32 words to tell a complete story. 32 words is what it took for me to feel seen.
You changed my life, not once, but twice that day.
First, you gifted me the honor of being authentically seen. I was not a cracked teacup, I was a wholly complete mosaic. Porcelain cracks filled with gold. Strong enough to hold the waters of love and trauma.
Then, you wrote my limiting beliefs out of existence. A roaring rapid of inspiration flooded my body. The creek-sized opportunity I thought I had to capture my voice in book-bound pages became expansive. The depth of all oceans entwined.
I used to hold my pen, now my pen holds me
It inks my story on my skin in messy scrawlings
Every remembered and unremembered second of my being
I am not my physical self
my eyes, my smile, my frame
I am the summation of all things tragedy and joy
My pen,
it flips me inside out
I am a novel it will take a lifetime to read
Brengartner
As the smell of must vaporized, so did time. I finished all of Milk and Honey in that burgundy lump of fabric. It now postures proudly on my bookshelf the way it did on the leaning book tower. Small but formidable. Quiet but brave.
You dedicated the book to the arms that hold you. In turn, through your writing, your arms have held me. Thank you for the gift of clarity, love, and belonging. I will write with the dream of passing it along.
Thank you for spending time reading in my corner today. I hope you enjoyed this ode to Rupi and that you too have a writer who has gifted you clarity, love and belonging.
Hugs and thanks to
, , , , and for all of the help editing this piece.
One of my best friends gifted me Milk & Honey when I was going through a tough break up, and I've been a Rupi Kaur fan ever since. I love this ode to her and that you included your own poetry as well, feels very at home in this piece and I'm sure Rupi would appreciate it!
"First, you gifted me the honor of being authentically seen. I was not a cracked teacup, I was a wholly complete mosaic." This is beautiful Haley! I love Rupi's poerty <3