Rupi Kaur weaves a powerful narrative on human trauma and healing

“…I should have known, when you began to confuse kind conversation with flirtation, when you told me to let my hair down, when instead of driving me home toward the bright intersection of lights and life, you took a left, to the road that led nowhere,” she narrates.

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Rupi Kaur presents this powerful talk on sexual violation and healing. (Designed by Gargi Singh)

“This home is empty now. No gas, no electricity, no running water. The food is rotten from head to foot. I am layered in dust; fruit flies, webs, bugs…” she goes on to say.

“I can’t even let a lover in without being sick. I lose sleep after the first date, lose my appetite, become more bone and less skin, forget to breathe… Every lover who touches me, ends up feeling like you,” she describes the trauma. “This home is what I came into this world with; was the first home. Will be the last home. You can’t take it,” she says.

Speaking about her physical space, she says, “I have never felt homesick, because for me, home was wherever I was… So then what happens when your home, when your body is attacked? It makes you feel robbed, like you don’t even own your body. They own it, and you are living in it on rent. And this feeling of homelessness within the body isn’t restricted to only sexual violence. Domestic violence can make you feel just as far away from yourself,” she says.

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Kaur ends her talk by going back to the beginning, coming a full circle, as if to remind people she is reclaiming her home, her body. It is hers for the taking and “there’s no space for you”.