So, I read Milk and Honey today for the booktubeathon and there were a lot of poems that really resonated with me and I wanted to write down my favorite poems mostly for me so I can come back to these. If you’ve read this book, let me know some of yours in the comments!
Poems:
sex takes the consent of two
if one person is lying there not doing anything
cause they are not ready
or not in the mood
or simply don’t want to
yet the other is having sex
with their body it’s not love
it is rape
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
(Milk and Honey, page 30)
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 anger
you’re right
this rage is the one thing
i get from my father
(homage to warsan shire’s inheritance)
(Milk and Honey, page 34)
father. you always call to say nothing in particular. you ask what i’m doing or where i am and when the silence stretches like a lifetime between us i scramble to find questions to keep the conversation going. what i long to say most is, i understand this world broke you, it has been so hard on your feet. 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 com 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.
(Milk and Honey, page 37)
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
(Milk and Honey, page 39)
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
(Milk and Honey, page 60)
i need someone
who knows struggle
as well as i do
someone
willing to hold my feet in their lap
on days it is too difficult to stand
the type of person who gives
exactly what i need
before i ever know i need it
the type of lover who hears me
even when i do not speak
is the type of understanding
i demand
– the type of lover i need
(Milk and Honey, page 74)
he only whispers i love you
as he slips his hands
down the waistband
of your pants
this is where you must
understand the difference
between want and need
you may want that boy
but you certainly
don’t need him
(Milk and Honey, page 86)
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 skyscrapers 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 your 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 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
(Milk and Honey, page 97)
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 the type of man he is
(Milk and Honey, page 99)
you treat them like they
have a heart like yours
but not everyone can be as
soft and as tender
you don’t see the
person they are
you see the person
they have the potential to be
you give and give till
they pull everything out of you
and leave you empty
(Milk and Honey, page 106)
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
(Milk and Honey, page 109)
you were not wrong for leaving
you were wrong for coming back
and thinking
you could have me
when it was convenient
and leave when it was not
(Milk and Honey, page 120)
love is not cruel
we are cruel
love is not a game
we have made a game
out of love
(Milk and Honey, page 127)
i am confident i am over you. so much that some mornings i wake up with a smile on my face and my hands pressed together thanking the universe for pulling you out of me. thank god i cry. thank god you left. i would not be the empire i am today if you had stayed.
but then.
there are some nights i imagine what i might do if you showed up. how if you walked into the room this very second every awful thing you’ve ever done would be tossed out the closest window and all the love would rise up again. it would pour through my eyes as if it never really left in the first place. as if it’s been practicing how to stay silent so long only so it could be this loud on your arrival. can someone explain that. how even when the love leaves. it doesn’t leave. how even when i am so past you. i am so helplessly brought back to you.
(Milk and Honey, 132)
what i miss most is how you loved me. but what i didn’t know was how you loved me so much to do with the person i was. it was a reflection of everything i gave to 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 once you left.
(Milk and Honey, page 138)
you are in the habit
of co-depending
on people to
make up for what
you think you lack
who tricked you
into believing
another person
was meant to complete you
when the most they can do is complement
(Milk and Honey, page 154)
you tell me
i am not like most girls
and learn to kiss me with your eyes closed
something about the phrase– something about
how i have to be unlike the women
i call sisters in order to be wanted
makes me want to spit your tongue out
like i am supposed to be proud of you picked me
as if i should be relieved you think
i am better than them
(Milk and Honey, page 164)
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
(Milk and Honey, page 165)
i like the way the stretch marks
on my thighs look human and
that we’re so soft yet
rough and jungle wild
hen we need to be
i love that about us
how capable we are of feeling
how unafraid we are of breaking
and tend to our wounds with grace
just being a woman
calling myself
a woman
makes me utterly whole
and complete
(Milk and Honey, page 169)
my issue with what they consider beautiful
is their concept of beauty
centers around excluding people
i find hair beautiful
when a woman wears it
like a garden on her skin
that is the definition of beauty
big hooked noses
pointing upward to the sky
like they’re rising
to the occasion
skin the color of earth
my ancestors planted crops on
to feed a lineage of women with
thighs thick as tree trunks
eyes like almonds
deeply hooded with conviction
the rivers of punjab
flow through my bloodstream so
don’t tell me my women
aren’t as beautiful
as the ones in
your country
(Milk and Honey, page 170)
removing all the hair
off your body is okay
if that’s what you want to do
just as much as keeping all the hair
on your body is okay
if that’s what you want to do
-you belong only to yourself
(Milk and Honey, page 176)
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
(Milk and Honey, page 177)
you were a dragon long before
he came around and said
you could fly
you will remain a dragon long after he’s left
(Milk and Honey, page 178)
i want to apologize to all the women
i have called pretty
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 the most you have to be proud of when your
spirit has crushed mountains
from now on i will say things like
you are resilient or you are extraordinary
not because i don’t think you’re pretty
but because you are so much more than that
(Milk and Honey, page 179)
my heart aches for sisters more than anything
it aches for women helping women
like flowers ache for spring
(Milk and Honey, page 187)
hair
if it was not supposed to be there
would not be growing
on our bodies in the first place
-we are at war with what comes most naturally to us
(Milk and Honey, 193)
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
(Milk and Honey, page 201)
-Angie
angiesbookblog 
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