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Home Body(8)
Author: Rupi Kaur

   are also felt by

   so many others

 

 

   my body renews itself in waves of ocean and blood

 

 

   i have a very complicated relationship

   with the country i was born in

   our men were

   slaughtered in those streets

   our women were raped

   while thousands were tortured

   and disappeared by police

   the indian state denies what they did

   but no amount of yoga or bollywood

   can make us forget the

   sikh genocide they orchestrated


- never forget 1984

 

 

   i will never be quiet

   about the way my

   people resisted

   so i could be free

 

 

   our wounds are the reason

   i started writing poetry

   every word

   i’ve ever written was to

   lead us back into our arms

 

 

   they could take away

   everything we have

   and we’d conjure this

   beautiful life up all over again

   with the bones in our backs

   building an empire

   from the ground up

   is exactly what we’re good at

 

 

   ours must be

   a politic of revolution

   freedom can’t exist

   until the most disadvantaged are free

 

 

   don’t sleep on

   the doormat of your potential

   waiting for things to happen

   when you could be

   the thing that happens

 

 

   you are one person

   but when you move

   an entire community

   walks through you


- you go nowhere alone

 

 

   by virtue of living

   in a racist world

   nonblack people are

   raised to be antiblack

   we are all taught that

   lighter is better


- undoing

 

 

   your voice

   is your sovereignty


- free

 

 

   you look tired he says

   i turn to him and say

   yeah i’m exhausted

   i’ve been fighting misogyny for decades

   how else do you expect me to look

 

 

   no one on this planet

   is in more denial

   than the white man

   who regardless of all

   the evidence in front of him

   still thinks racism and sexism

   and all the world’s pain don’t exist

 

 

   the world is changing

   can you feel it

   undressing itself and slipping into

   something uncomfortable

   and more just


- waves

 

 

   i’m not interested

   in a feminism that thinks

   simply placing women at the top

   of oppressive systems is progress


- not your convenient figurehead

 

 

   the future

   world of our dreams

   can’t be built on the

   corruptions of the past


- tear it down

 

 

   today i saw myself for the first time

   when i dusted off

   the mirror of my mind

   and the woman looking back

   took my breath away

   who was this beautiful beastling

   this extra-celestial earthling

   i touched my face and my reflection

   touched the woman of my dreams

   all her gorgeous smirking back at me

   my knees surrendered to the earth

   as i wept and sighed at how

   i’d gone my whole life

   being myself

   but not seeing myself

   spent decades living inside my body

   never left it once

   yet managed to miss all its miracles

   isn’t it funny how you can

   occupy a space without

   being in touch with it

   how it took so long for me

   to open the eyes of my eyes

   embrace the heart of my heart

   kiss the soles of my swollen feet

   and hear them whisper

   thank you

   thank you

   thank you

   for noticing

 

 

   you have everything to gain

   from believing in yourself

   yet you spend all your time with self-doubt

 

 

   there is a conversation

   happening inside you

   pay deep attention

   to what your inner world

   is saying

 

 

   i stopped resisting

   the unpleasant feelings

   and accepted that happiness

   has nothing to do with

   feeling good all the time


- balance

 

 

   it’s easy to love

   the nice things about ourselves

   but true self-love is

   embracing the difficult parts

   that live in all of us


- acceptance

 

 

   can you hear the women who came before me

   five hundred thousand voices

   ringing through my neck

   as if this were all a stage built for them

   i can’t tell which parts of me are me

   and which parts are them

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