Rupi.kaur Quotes

Loneliness is a sign you are in desperate need of yourself.

i am a museum full of art but you had your eyes shut

do not look for healing at the feet of those who broke you

I didn't leave because I stopped loving you, I left because the longer I stayed the less I loved myself.

how you love yourself is how you teach others to love you

if you were born with the weakness to fall you were born with the strength to rise

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

The kindest words my father said to me Women like you drown oceans.

i am water soft enough to offer life tough enough to drown it away

people go but how they left always stays

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

he placed his hands on my mind before reaching for my waist my hips or my lips he didn't call me beautiful first he called me exquisite - how he touches me

Our backs tell stories no books have the spine to carry

for you to see beauty here does not mean there is beauty in me it means there is beauty rooted so deep within you you can't help but see it everywhere

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.

what is stronger than the human heart which shatters over and over and still lives

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 feel 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

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

The thing about writing is I can't tell if it's healing or destroying.

you might not have been my first love but you were the love that made all other loves seem irrelevant

why is it that when the story ends we begin to feel all of it

fall in love with your solitude

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

the world gives you so much pain and here you are making gold out of it - there is nothing purer than that

i am hopelessly a lover and a dreamer and that will be the death of me

your art is not about how many people like your work your art is about if your heart likes your work if your soul likes your work it's about how honest you are with yourself and you must never trade honesty for relatability

a lot of times we are angry at other people for not doing what we should have done for ourselves - responsibility

i have what i have and i am happy i’ve lost what i’ve lost and i am still happy - outlook

when you are broken and he has left you do not question whether you were enough the problem was you were so enough he was not able to carry it

most importantly love like it's the only thing you know how at the end of the day all this means nothing this page where you're sitting your degree your job the money nothing even matters except love and human connection who you loved and how deeply you loved them how you touched the people around you and how much you gave them

you cannot leave and have me too i cannot exist in two places at once -when you ask if we can still be friends

despite knowing they won’t be here for long they still choose to live their brightest lives - sunflowers

my heart woke me crying last night how can i help i begged my heart said write the book

You do not just wake up and become the butterfly" -Growth is a process.

i don’t know what living a balanced life feels like when i am sad i don’t cry i pour when i am happy i don’t smile i glow when i am angry i don’t yell i burn the good thing about feeling in extremes is when i love i give them wings but perhaps that isn't such a good thing cause they always tend to leave and you should see me when my heart is broken i don't grieve i shatter

the very thought of you has my legs spread apart like an easel with a canvas begging for art

it was when I stopped searching for home within others and lifted the foundations of home within myself I found there were no roots more intimate than those between a mind and body that have decided to be whole.

i am not a hotel room. i am home i am not the whiskey you want i am the water you need don't come here with expectations and try to make a vacation out of me

it takes grace to remain kind in cruel situations

you look at me and cry everything hurts i hold you and whisper but everything can heal

and here you are living despite it all

you left and i wanted you still yet i deserved someone who was willing to stay

you must want to spend the rest of your life with yourself first

i stand on the sacrifices of a million women before me thinking what can i do to make this mountain taller so the women after me can see farther - legacy

she was a rose in the hands of those who had no intention of keeping her

nothing is safer than the sound of you reading out loud to me -the perfect date

it isn't what we left behind that breaks me it's whatever we could've built had we stayed

that is the thing about selfish people. they gamble entire beings. entire souls to please their own.

love will come and when love comes love will hold you love will call your name and you will melt sometimes though love will hurt you but love will never mean to love will play no games cause love knows life has been hard enough already

If I'm not the love of your life I'll be the greatest loss instead

what terrifies me most is how we foam at the mouth with envy when others succeed but sigh in relief when they are failing our struggle to celebrate each other is what's proven most difficult in being human

apparently it is ungraceful of me to mention my period in public cause the actual biology of my body is too real it is okay to sell what's between a woman's legs more than it is okay to mention its inner workings the recreational use of this body is seen as beautiful while its nature is seen as ugly

what am i to you he asks i put my hands in his lap and whisper you are every hope i've ever had in human form

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

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

do not bother holding onto that thing that does not want you -you cannot make it stay

we have been dying since we got here and forgot to enjoy the view - live fully

your body is a museum of natural disasters can you grasp how stunning that is

you're everywhere except right here and it hurts

you are the faint line between faith and blindly waiting - letter to my future lover

you were a dragon long before he came around and said you could fly you will remain a dragon long after he's left

trying to convince myself i am allowed to take up space is like writing with my left hand when i was born to use my right -the idea shrinking is hereditary

there is a difference between someone telling you they love you and them actually loving you

no it won't be love at first sight when we meet it'll be love at first remembrance cause i've seen you in my mother's eyes when she tells me to marry the type of man i'd want to raise my son to be like

people say things meant to rip you in half but you hold the power to not turn their words into a knife and cut yourself

when death takes my hand i will hold you with the other and promise to find you in every lifetime

don’t mistake salt for sugar if he wants to be with you he will it’s that simple

I’d be lying if I said you make me speechless the truth is you make my tongue so weak it forgets what language to speak in.

the right one does not stand in your way they make space for you to step forward

sometimes the apology never comes when it is wanted and when it comes it is neither wanted nor needed -you are too late

i was music but you had your ears cut off

never feel guilty for starting again

you ask if we can still be friends i explain how a honeybee does not dream kissing the mouth of a flower and then settle for its leaves

you have sadness living in places sadness shouldn’t live

i could be anything in the world but i wanted to be his

i am made of water of course i am emotional

Let it go, let it leave, let it happen. Nothing in this world was promised or belonged to you anyway.

If I knew what safety looked like, I would have spent less time falling into arms that were not

i thank the universe for taking everything it has taken and giving to me everything it is giving -balance

i always get myself into this mess. i always let him tell me i am beautiful and half believe it. i always jump thinking he will catch me at the fall. i am hopelessly a lover, and a dreamer, and that will be the death of me

this morning I told the flowers what I'd do for you and they blossomed

isn’t it such a tragic thing. when you can see it so clearly but the other person doesn’t.

I will no longer compare my path to others -I refuse to do a disservice to my life

the thing about having an alcoholic parent is an alcoholic parent does not exist simply an alcoholic who could not stay sober long enough to raise their kids

the next time you have your coffee black you'll taste the bitter state he left you in it will make you weep but you'll never stop drinking you'd rather have the darkest parts of him than have nothing

i have survived far too much to go quietly let a meteor take me call the thunder for backup my death will be grand the land will crack the sun will eat itself - the day I leave

To be soft is to be powerful

my favorite thing about you is your smell you smell like earth herbs gardens a little more human than the rest of us

you’ve touched me without even touching me.

the next time he points out the hair on your legs is growing back remind that boy your body is not his home he is a guest warn him to never outstep his welcome again

what i miss most is how you loved me. but what i didn't know was how you loved me had so much to do with the person i was. it was a reflection of everything i gave you. coming back to me. how did i not see that. how. did i sit here soaking in the idea that no one else would love me that way. when it was i that taught you. when it was i that showed you how to fill. the way i needed to be filled. how cruel i was to myself. giving you credit for my warmth simply because you had felt it. thinking it was you who gave me strength. wit. beauty. simply because you recognized it. as if i was already not these things before i met you. as if i did not remain all these things after you left.

i am sending my love to your eyes. may they always see goodness in people. and may you always practice kindness. may we see each other as one. may we be nothing short of in love with everything the universe has to offer. and may we always stay grounded. rooted. our feet planted firmly onto the earth.

i don't blame you for not knowing how to remain soft with me. sometimes i stay up thinking of all the places you are hurting which you'll never care to mention. i come from the same aching blood. from the same bone so desperate for attention i collapse in on myself. i am your daughter. i know the small talk is the only way you know how to tell me you love me. cause it is the only way i know how to tell you.

you look just like your mother i guess i do carry her tenderness well you both have the same eyes cause we are both exhausted and the hands we share the same wilting fingers but that rage your mother doesn't wear that rage you're right this rage is the one thing i get from my father

if he can't help but degrade other women when they're not looking if toxicity is central to his language he could hold you in his lap and be soft honey that man could feed you sugar and douse you in rose water but that still could not make him sweet -if you want to know what the type of man he is

i hardened under the last loss. it took something human out of me. i used to be so deeply emotional i’d crumble on demand. but now the water has made its exit. of course i care about the ones around me. i’m just struggling to show it. a wall is getting in the way. i used to dream of being so strong nothing could shake me. now. i am. so strong. that nothing shakes me. and all i dream is to soften.

that is the thing about selfish people. they gamble entire beings. entire souls to please their own. one second they are holding you like the world in their lap and the next they have belittled you to a mere picture. a moment. something of the past. one second. they swallow you up and whisper they want to spend the rest of their life with you. but the moment they sense fear. they are already halfway out the door. without having the nerve to let you go with grace. as if the human heart means that little to them. and after all this. after all of the taking. the nerve. isn't it sad and funny how people have more guts these days to undress you with their fingers than they do pick up the phone and call. apologize. for the loss. and this is how you lose her. - selfish

did you think i was a city big enough for a weekend getaway i am the town surrounding it the one you've never heard of but always pass through there are no neon lights here no skyscapers or statues but there is thunder for i make bridges tremble i am not street meat i am homemade jam thick enough to cut the sweetest thing you lips will touch i am not police sirens i am the crackle of a fireplace i'd burn you and you still couldn't take your eyes off of me cause i'd look so beautiful doing it you'd blush i am not a hotel room i am home i am not the whiskey you want i am the water you need don't come here with expectations and try to make a vacation out of me

i will tell you about selfish people. even when they know they will hurt you they walk into your life to taste you because you are the type of being they don’t want to miss out on. you are too much shine to not be felt. so when they have gotten a good look at everything you have to offer. when they have taken your skin your hair and your secrets with them. when they realize how real this is. how much of a storm you are and it hits them. that is when the cowardice sets in. that is when the person you thought they were is replaced by the sad reality of what they are. that is when they lose every fighting bone in their body and leave after saying you will find better than me. you will stand there naked with half of them still hidden somewhere inside you and sob. asking them why they did it. why they forced you to love them when they had no intention of loving you back and they’ll say something along the lines of i just had to try. i had to give it a chance. it was you after all. but that isn’t romantic. it isn’t sweet. the idea that they were so engulfed by your existence they had to risk breaking it for the sake of knowing they weren’t the one missing out. your existence meant that little next to their curiosity of you.

what love looks like what does love look like the therapist asks one week after the breakup and i’m not sure how to answer her question except for the fact that i thought love looked so much like you that’s when it hit me and i realized how naive i had been to place an idea so beautiful on the image of a person as if anybody on this entire earth could encompass all love represented as if this emotion seven billion people tremble for would look like a five foot eleven medium-sized brown-skinned guy who likes eating frozen pizza for breakfast what does love look like the therapist asks again this time interrupting my thoughts midsentence and at this point i’m about to get up and walk right out the door except i paid too much money for this hour so instead i take a piercing look at her the way you look at someone when you’re about to hand it to them lips pursed tightly preparing to launch into conversation eyes digging deeply into theirs searching for all the weak spots they have hidden somewhere hair being tucked behind the ears as if you have to physically prepare for a conversation on the philosophies or rather disappointments of what love looks like well i tell her i don’t think love is him anymore if love was him he would be here wouldn’t he if he was the one for me wouldn’t he be the one sitting across from me if love was him it would have been simple i don’t think love is him anymore i repeat i think love never was i think i just wanted something was ready to give myself to something i believed was bigger than myself and when i saw someone who probably fit the part i made it very much my intention to make him my counterpart and i lost myself to him he took and he took wrapped me in the word special until i was so convinced he had eyes only to see me hands only to feel me a body only to be with me oh how he emptied me how does that make you feel interrupts the therapist well i said it kind of makes me feel like shit maybe we’re looking at it wrong we think it’s something to search for out there something meant to crash into us on our way out of an elevator or slip into our chair at a cafe somewhere appear at the end of an aisle at the bookstore looking the right amount of sexy and intellectual but i think love starts here everything else is just desire and projection of all our wants needs and fantasies but those externalities could never work out if we didn’t turn inward and learn how to love ourselves in order to love other people love does not look like a person love is our actions love is giving all we can even if it’s just the bigger slice of cake love is understanding we have the power to hurt one another but we are going to do everything in our power to make sure we don’t love is figuring out all the kind sweetness we deserve and when someone shows up saying they will provide it as you do but their actions seem to break you rather than build you love is knowing who to choose