Rupi Kaur experienced oppression and abuse throughout her life. From an uncle who raped her as a child to a father who demanded she stay silent, she grew up in an environment that taught her she was worthless. However, as she grew up, her experiences with love and heartbreak taught her how to find the beauty in herself and how to heal in the face of painful experiences.
(Shortform note: This summary has been written to be as objective as possible. However, poetry naturally lends itself to individual interpretation. This summary is one interpretation of the work's themes and isn’t meant to be definitive.)
Kaur compares her journey through childhood to someone pinning her legs to the ground then demanding she stand. She felt as though people expected a lot from her while actively working against her instead of supporting her. Throughout her childhood, she experienced the fallout of a distant father, gender oppression, and sexual assault.
Kaur states that your father is supposed to be the first man you love, but that she didn’t have that experience because she never connected to her father. When they would speak, her father often screamed at her. He claimed this was out of love, but this confused Kaur. She began to associate love with aggression. In fact, she began to develop angry tendencies like those of her father.
Growing up, Kaur and her mother were told to be silent. Any time Kaur would try to speak up, her father and other men in her life would shut her down. Because she was told to stay silent, Kaur began to view herself as unimportant. She would look at herself in the mirror and tell herself that she was nothing.
As a child, Kaur was raped by her uncle. She recalls her assault in graphic detail. For a while, her trauma led her to feel unsafe in sexual or physical situations, even when they were safe and consensual. She explains that she would sometimes flinch when someone touched her because she was afraid it was her abuser. Though it took time, she did overcome her trauma. It significantly impacted her life, but she didn’t let it destroy her.
As Kaur got older, she began to discover the true meaning of love. Though her trauma initially created significant obstacles, she began to break down those barriers through her recognition of the power of mothers and her first significant relationship.
When her mother was pregnant with her sister, Kaur asked how her mother had gotten so large so quickly. Her father explained that a woman’s body is the closest thing to God on earth because it produces life. This revelation made Kaur see the female body as powerful for the first time in her life.
The first serious love of Kaur’s life focused on her intellect before her body. They would read together and talk about their hopes and dreams. He related to her struggles and helped her work through them. She finally met a man whom she could love without being silenced or hurt. While she had been in previous relationships, none had ever been like this.
When they were finally ready to have sex, it was passionate and loving. Where her abuse had once kept her from experiencing love and sex as one, she finally began to draw the connections with this man. Because she felt empowered by sex, she enjoyed the intimacy rather than fearing the loss of control. As their relationship blossomed, Kaur realized that she wanted their love to be complementary, not codependent. To do that, she began to give herself the value that had been stripped away when she was a child.
While her first serious relationship started in a strong place, it deteriorated over the years. This resulted in a nasty breakup that caused a variety of emotions to surface. Immediately following the breakup, she grappled with her mixed feelings and tried to hold onto the self-worth she’d begun to build.
After they broke up, Kaur noticed the red flags she had ignored throughout their relationship. He sometimes claimed to have to stay at work for a few extra hours but wasn’t at the office when Kaur checked. He grew more distant and even said another woman’s name in bed. Her love for him blinded her to the less desirable qualities he had.
Part of Kaur wanted nothing to do with her ex after the breakup. She claimed she didn’t need him anymore. She was done with his lying and disrespect. This side of her emotions led her to claim that her ex would regret losing her. However, another part of her desperately wanted him back. When she had romantic or sexual encounters following their breakup, her mind would race back to him. She longed for him to return to her bed and be a part of her life.
Despite the intense emotions she felt following the breakup, Kaur worked to maintain the self-worth she had built. By the end of their relationship, he had treated her like she was a commodity to be used and left instead of a partner to care for and support. She knew that she was worth more than that. She didn’t want to be something he just wanted to fool around with. She wanted a relationship where he needed to be with her and gave her the respect she deserved.
As she moved on from her first love, Kaur learned that the key to happiness in life is self-love. Throughout her childhood, she felt defined by her surroundings. In her relationship, she felt defined by her lover. With distance from both of those, she realized the only person who could define who she was as a human being was herself.
Kaur saw that there was no use in clinging on to someone who didn’t want her in return. In fact, she realized that there was no use entering a relationship at all until she loved herself. She concluded that the only way to have a healthy relationship was to embrace that she deserved more than love that hurt her.
She realized that her self-love taught other people how to love her. The more she valued herself, the more others valued her. This wasn’t because she changed anything about herself. Rather, her best qualities began to rise to the surface because they were no longer bogged down by insecurity.
Following her breakup, she embraced her femininity. She realized that she was not owned by any man. She learned to love the things about her body that others hated. She discovered a lot of her identity by embracing the things others may view as ugly or problematic such as her period, her body hair, and her stretch marks. She explains that every person is born beautiful, but society convinces them that they aren’t.
Kaur cries for women to begin embracing their own beauty and stop judging other women. She believes every woman is different, and what they do with their body is their business. With this in mind, she calls for women to support each other and value one another for their intellect and resilience instead of just their looks.
Kaur believes that society tends to see her physical traits and those of her fellow women of color as undesirable. She explains that her hooked nose, dark complexion, and strong legs are often seen as ugly in North American culture. She rejects this premise. As she began to love herself and her body, she embraced her racial and cultural qualities as beautiful and as something that connected her to her rich ancestry.
Rupi Kaur experienced oppression and abuse throughout her life. From an uncle who raped her as a child to a father who demanded she stay silent, she grew up in an environment that taught her she was worthless. However, as she grew up, her experiences with love and heartbreak taught her how to find the beauty in herself and how to heal in the face of painful experiences.
(Shortform note: This summary has been written to be as objective as possible. However, poetry naturally lends itself to individual interpretation. This summary is one interpretation of the work's themes and isn’t meant to be definitive.)
When asked about her tendency to show kindness, Kaur explains that people weren’t kind to her growing up and she doesn’t want to make anyone else feel the way she felt. She believes everyone is capable of love, yet many choose to be toxic.
She compares her journey through childhood to someone pinning her legs to the ground then demanding she stand. She felt as though people expected a lot from her while actively working against her instead of supporting her. Throughout her childhood, she experienced the fallout of a distant father, gender oppression, and sexual assault.
Kaur states that your father is supposed to be the first man you love, but that she didn’t have that experience because she never connected to her father. Kaur’s father was an alcoholic. She explains that there’s no such thing as an alcoholic parent. Instead, there are just alcoholics who fail to parent. When they would speak, her father often screamed at her. He claimed this was out of love, but this confused Kaur. She began to associate love with aggression. In fact, she began to develop angry tendencies like those of her father.
While Kaur had to beg her father to have a relationship, her mother showered her with love and affection. This difference in their approach to attention and affection caused her parents to fight. All at once, she was the thing that kept them together, and the thing that split them apart. Because of their constant fighting, she couldn’t tell if her mother was scared of her father or in love with him. To Kaur, it all looked the same.
She related to her father through their shared inability to share their feelings with one another. When she got older, she would try to talk with her father over the phone, but their conversations would usually just consist of small talk. She always wanted to tell him that she didn’t blame him for his distance but never could. She knew that his behavior was a product of his upbringing and hardships in life. His attempts at small talk were his way of saying “I love you.” Kaur knew this because she used small talk in the same way.
Growing up, Kaur and her mother were told to be silent. Any time Kaur would try to speak up, her father and other men in her life would shut her down. Her father was afraid of her voice, so she grew to be afraid of it too. This may have been because her father taught her that women having an opinion made them less desirable to the rest of society.
Because she was told to stay silent, Kaur began to view herself as unimportant. She would look at herself in the mirror and tell herself that she was nothing. When she tried to convince herself that she was allowed to exist and have an opinion, her insecurities would silence her. She submitted to the demands of the men in her life and remained silent and unseen throughout her childhood.
It’s through this demand for submission that Kaur asserts that women have been taught that sex is similar to a pit stop for men. They may come and go as they please, but they never have to stay for long. In her own experiences, she couldn’t draw the connection between sex and love for a long time.
The first boy Kaur kissed held her down and forced himself on her. She was five years old at the time. After this, Kaur believed that her body wasn’t her own. Instead, her body was meant to be given to those who wanted it. She explains that the boy was a product of the household he was living in. His father’s sexual demands towards his mother taught him that sex was a man’s right and a woman’s obligation. Kaur relates to the boy’s mother through the emptiness Kaur felt after the forced encounter.
As a child, Kaur was raped by her uncle. She recalls her assault in graphic detail. In one therapy session, her therapist asked her to point to the area her uncle touched her. She noticed that the doll was about the same size as the girls her uncle liked to abuse. After she explained her uncle’s actions, her therapist asked how she was feeling. She said that she felt numb.
For a while, her trauma led her to feel unsafe in sexual or physical situations, even when they were safe and consensual. She would sometimes flinch when someone touched her because she was afraid it was her abuser. Though it took time, she did overcome her trauma. It significantly impacted her life, but she didn’t let it destroy her.
As Kaur got older, she began to discover the true meaning of love. Though her trauma initially created significant obstacles, she began to break down those barriers through her recognition of the power of mothers and her first significant relationship.
When her mother was pregnant with her sister, Kaur asked how her mother had gotten so large so quickly. Her father explained that a woman’s body is the closest thing to God on earth because it produces life. This revelation made Kaur see the female body as powerful for the first time in her life.
When she was young, Kaur struggled to understand how a mother could focus all of her love and energy into a child without expecting anything in return. She couldn’t relate to it, but she was intrigued by it. She looked to her loving mother for guidance, especially when it came to love. When discussing romantic relationships, her mother insisted that she marry the type of man that Kaur would be proud to have as a son.
The first serious love of Kaur’s life focused on her intellect before her body. They would read together and talk about their hopes and dreams. He related to her struggles and helped her work through them. He was able to take the rage she inherited from her father and calm her down. He was grounded and authentic. To her, the very sound of his name either excited her or made her long for him. She finally met a man whom she could love without being silenced or hurt. While she had been in previous relationships, none had ever been like this.
As their relationship blossomed, Kaur realized that she wanted their love to be complementary, not codependent. To do that, she began to love herself and give herself the value that had been stripped away when she was a child. She was no longer “nothing.” She knew that she was something, and, with his support, she became a more confident and complete woman.
When they were finally ready to have sex, it was passionate and loving. Where her abuse had once kept her from experiencing love and sex as one, she finally began to draw the connections with this man. To her, their foreplay was like making music and their intimacy was like dancing. Because she felt empowered by sex, she enjoyed the intimacy rather than fearing the loss of control. In fact, she began to view sex as passion rather than obligation. Even when they fought, they would always return to sex as a way to remind each other of the passion both of them felt.
While her first serious relationship started in a strong place, it deteriorated over the years. She stayed in the relationship for a while because she believed they could solve their differences. When the strains of her relationship began to surface, Kaur’s mother told her that she could do better. Kaur jumped to her lover’s defense. She believed that their love would be able to endure the issues they were facing. She thought that she would never experience love with anyone else in the way that she experienced it with him.
However, they ultimately couldn’t salvage their relationship. This resulted in a nasty breakup that caused a variety of emotions to surface. He said that if the universe wanted them to be together, they would get back together. Kaur rejected this premise. She knew that relationships could only thrive if both parties wanted them to. Immediately following the split, she grappled with her mixed feelings and tried to hold onto the self-worth she’d begun to build.
After they broke up, Kaur noticed the red flags she had ignored throughout their relationship. Her partner had sometimes claimed to have to stay at work for a few extra hours but wasn’t at the office when Kaur checked. He grew more distant and even said another woman’s name in bed. Her love for him blinded her to the less desirable qualities he had.
She realized that he didn’t have a lot of respect for women. He would degrade other women in private and would only say “I love you” when he wanted to have sex. She had become a sex object to him rather than a human being. She gave him all of her love and energy. In return, he used her for what he wanted, then ignored her as he slept with other people. His love for her was gone. He was just afraid of being alone.
Ultimately, she realized that her ex was a selfish lover. He wanted her to fulfill his needs, but he never had any regard for hers. Whereas she had begun to feel like an independent woman at the beginning of their relationship, she began to feel less than whole being around him. The distance he kept and the way that he used her started to take a toll on her self-worth. He didn’t intend to commit to her. Instead, he threw her aside when the relationship wasn’t convenient for him.
Part of Kaur wanted nothing to do with her ex after the breakup. She claimed she didn’t need him anymore. She was done with his lying and disrespect. This side of her emotions led her to claim that her ex would regret losing her. She said that she had so much to offer him, but he refused to take it. She said that he would struggle to love another woman because he would long for the one he lost.
However, another part of her desperately wanted him back. When she had romantic or sexual encounters following their breakup, her mind would race back to him. Even when she tried to remove him from her life, her thoughts would always come back to him. She longed for him to return to her bed and be a part of her life. While she would wake up some mornings feeling as though she had moved on, the loneliness she would experience at night made her want him to return.
She implies that he came back once or twice, but the result was more heartache and pain. He asked to be friends, but she couldn’t come to terms with that. She wanted all of him or nothing at all. Every time he returned, she felt the heartbreak all over again because she wanted something from him that he was not prepared to give: commitment.
Despite the intense emotions she felt following the breakup, Kaur worked to maintain the self-worth she had built. By the end, he had treated her like she was a commodity to be used and left instead of a partner to care for and support. She knew that she was worth more than that. She didn’t want to be something he just wanted to fool around with. She wanted a relationship where he needed to be with her and gave her the respect she deserved.
While she felt mixed emotions about the breakup, she didn’t regret it ending. She knew the longer she was with him, the less she would love herself. She was giving too much of herself trying to make the relationship work. She accepted that if he didn’t want her, then nothing she did was going to change that. She stopped questioning what else she could have done to keep him and accepted that he was simply not able to handle everything that she was giving to him.
She realized that the only person that could make her feel whole was herself. She stopped trying to build her life around another person and started focusing on building a life around herself. When she stepped back, she noticed that many of the qualities she loved about her ex were actually just reflections of her own actions and affections. She had taught him how to love her by loving herself. When she realized that, she once again felt whole.
As she moved on from her first love, Kaur learned that the key to happiness in life is self-love. Throughout her childhood, she felt defined by her surroundings. In her relationship, she felt defined by her lover. With distance from both of those, she realized the only person who could define who she was as a human being was herself.
Kaur saw that there was no use in clinging on to someone who didn’t want her in return. In fact, she realized that there was no use entering a relationship at all until she loved herself. She concluded that the only way to have a healthy relationship was to embrace that she deserved more than love that hurt her.
While she felt lonely after the breakup, she found that waiting for someone to make her feel whole was a futile task. She realized that the cure to loneliness isn’t finding another person to complete you. It’s embracing that you are a complete human being without anyone else. If you learn to love yourself when you’re alone, the feelings of loneliness won’t feel as crushing. Other people can complement your strengths, but they can’t give you the things you think you lack.
Kaur views pain as part of being human. Everyone experiences pain. It’s what you do with it that counts. She used her pain to strengthen her resolve and accept that she deserved to love herself and reject the people that hurt her. She saw every experience as a chance for gratitude. When she got hurt, she saw it as an opportunity to learn. When she was given love, she embraced it with open arms.
She realized that her self-love taught other people how to love her. The more she valued herself, the more others valued her. This wasn’t because she changed anything about herself. Rather, her best qualities began to rise to the surface because they were no longer bogged down by insecurity.
Despite her pain, Kaur insists that everyone should love passionately and wholeheartedly. She insists that nothing else matters if you can’t offer and accept love. You could have the greatest job in the world and make obscene amounts of money, but, without love, you’ll never feel fulfilled.
She recognized the misogynistic ways of her former lover as well as the other men in her life. Once, her lover told her that she wasn’t like other girls. Kaur hated this phrase as it implied that the only way she could be loved was to be different from other women. It was as if he were saying women are typically undesirable.
Following her breakup, she embraced her femininity. She realized that she was not owned by any man. She began to love her body, and she saw that she could do with it as she pleased. She learned to love the things about her body that others hated. She discovered a lot of her identity by embracing the things others may view as ugly or problematic such as her period, her body hair, and her stretch marks. She explains that every person is born beautiful, but society convinces them that they aren’t.
Kaur cries for women to begin embracing their own beauty and stop judging other women. She believes every woman is different, and what women do with their bodies is their business. With this in mind, she calls for women to support each other and value one another for their intellect and resilience instead of just their looks. Instead of tearing each other down, she calls for women to celebrate each other’s success and raise each other up during their struggles.
Kaur believes that society tends to see her physical traits and those of her fellow women of color as undesirable. She explains that her hooked nose, dark complexion, and strong legs are often seen as ugly in North American culture. She rejects this premise. As she began to love herself and her body, she embraced her racial and cultural qualities as beautiful and as something that connected her to her rich ancestry.
She uses her surname (Kaur) to reflect on the struggles and beauty of her ancestors. On her journey of self-love, she used the strength of all of the women who came before her to remind herself of the following:
(Shortform note: the surname “Kaur” was historically given to all female Sikhs in 1699 by the 10th Guru in Sikhism—Guru Gobind Singh Ji. The name literally translates to “princess” and was championed as a symbol of gender and class equality in the Sikh faith.)
Kaur asserts that the only way to feel fulfilled in life is to love yourself.
Describe a recent relationship or close friendship in which you felt you gave more love than you got.
Now, think of your personal emotional state during that relationship. Did you feel like a complete person or were you relying on someone else to validate or fulfill you? Did you feel as though you deserved a significant amount of love?
Finally, take a moment to think about the ways that loving yourself could have helped you in that relationship. Think about discovering self-worth, accepting that you deserve love that doesn’t hurt, and embracing your own identity (gender, cultural, racial, and so on).