Love And Love In Rupi Kaur's Milk And Honey

Imagine you are in a long term relationship with someone. That person is so special to you and never fails to make you feel overjoyed. Then all of the sudden, something goes awry in the relationship. You are alone and shattered. Instead of feeling content, now you are feeling the complete opposite. How could someone say they love you so much but, make you feel like you are not good enough for them? Rupi Kaur, the author of Milk and Honey, captures these events in the form of poems. The theme “someone can fill you with happiness but, also break you into a million pieces”, reveals the speaker’s stance on relationships in Milk and Honey. Loving another can be extreme. The speaker conveys this in several poems giving a different view on love

Throughout one of the sections in the book called “The breaking”, the speaker really attacks this subject. The poems can relate to any relationship and be a great comfort to anyone going through troubled times. “The breaking returned us to a darker place in Kaur’s life. Any girl that has ever endured a break up after a long term relationship could find a relatable poem in this section.” (Tiede, “Book Review: Milk and Honey”). The speaker explains that when someone leaves, you are left with the memories. They leave and stay at the same time. “You leave but you don’t stay gone. Why do you do that? Why do you abandon the thing you want to keep? Why do you linger in a place you do not want to stay? Why do you think it’s okay to do both, go and return all at once.” (Kaur, pg. 139). It’s a constant battle of remembering things about them even though they are gone. If you love someone and you depend on them, when they leave you, then that is when you fall to pieces. “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.” (Kaur, pg. 109). In the poem, she uses the connotative word, shatter, to describe the real heart ache. This shows the reader that the speaker is attempting to grab their attention and really explain to them the idea of loss. Losing someone can be just as

This idea is connected to the previous topic. The poems describe the author’s experiences and her journey through life. The author, Rupi Kaur, wanted to construct four sections that can relate to her and her supporters’ past experiences. “It was nice to have support from them and to create that dialogue, and it pushed me a lot to write and keep writing. It assured me that these are topics and themes that I can write about, because sometimes you write a piece, maybe it’s about domestic violence, and you put it out into the world and you feel really, really naked.” (Biedenharn, par. 3). In the section of Milk and Honey, “The Breaking”, the speaker slightly refers to this concept, “feeling damaged but loved at the same time”, in a select few of the poems. In one of the poems, the speaker explains how their significant other’s name is very influential to their emotions. “Your name is he strongest positive and negative connotation in any language. It either lights me up or leaves me aching for days” (Kaur, pg. 67). You start to remember the memories associated with that person when you hear their name. Hearing that name could either resurface depressing or pleasant thoughts. Once you are in a long term relationship, it is difficult to let go. On the other hand, it is also difficult to stay and one of the excerpts shows this situation perfectly. “Neither of us is happy but, neither of us wants to leave so we keep breaking