milk and honey | an ode to moving on
I came across milk and honey through a pal of mine who had read it recently, who told me there were bits that I would really connect with and she thought it would hit me. Oh boy did it hit me.
"I wasn't really able to reflect until a friend asked me, ' How do you feel?'. And then it was like the world slowed down and I thought about it for a second, and then my heart, there was just a big pull on it and I said, I told her, I feel good." ~ Rupi Kaur about milk and honey.
Milk and honey is a 204 page poetry piece which is split into four sections that signify moving on; the hurting, the loving, the breaking and the healing, so it is perhaps a-given that it covers the deepest, darkest yet sometimes the most empowering periods of her life. Carrying strong adult themes throughout the four chapters, Rupi Kaur invites you on a journey of the most difficult and challenging times of her life and yearns for your understanding.
It's quite a hard-hitting book and makes you think about things you haven't thought about before. Whether you're in the hurting stage or the loving stage, you realise you relate to something you perhaps thought you didn't. It's a book about finding your inner strength, tackling feminism and relying on yourself, inviting thought-provoking questions that are further prompted through powerful illustrations. A relatively quick read, it instantly forces you to reflect on pain the writer has such strong emotions about, and pain close to your own heart.
The writing is short and simple in free verse with a constant outpouring of heartfelt wisdom, and you really get the sense that she is there for you as a friend - someone to trust. I found it left me breathless, reading each page as quickly as the next. Taking in all the themes and questions she poses so intensely, I mentally read page after page as though it was a tragic story.
The author speaks to everyone, but her message to women in particular is so influential that you feel the words you are reading so deeply in your heart. Whether her words help you to understand the necessity to move on is another thing, but each change in the process is so clearly present that the poetry takes on a whole new meaning each time.
The reason I finally picked up and read the book I had been keeping under my bed was because I was having a bad day, just "one of those days" as it's sometimes put. In reality though, there was a storm going on in my head, so I read it on a day I really needed to - well I couldn't put it down. Milk and honey hit me hard, and I know it won't for many of you out there because not everyone feels the same - but if you're struggling with anything at all, big or small, something you've told people about or have kept to yourself, this poetry will take you through raw and beautifully painful experiences.
Several passages have stuck with me since reading the four chapters, whether that's because I ended up reading it at half past three in the morning while I was recovering from a hypo (#diabeticproblems) and was half delirious, I'm not sure. All I knew was that I was in a fragile mindset, and this book opened my eyes to something greater than anything in that moment. 10/10 must-read.
Have you read milk and honey? Let me know what you think about it below!
