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[The following talk contains[br]descriptions of sexual violence

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[which may be triggering to survivors.]

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[Can you help me?]

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[Can you help change the world

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[with more meaningful questions?]

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[Question everything better.]

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(Reciting) It began as a typical Thursday:

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sunlight kissed my eyelids good morning.

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I remember climbing out of bed,

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making coffee to the sound[br]of children playing outside,

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putting music on,

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loading the dishwasher,

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putting roses in a vase[br]in the middle of the kitchen table.

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Only when my apartment was spotless[br]would I step into the bathtub,

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wash yesterday out of my hair,

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like the walls of my home were decorated

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with frames, bookshelves,[br]photos I'd decorate myself.

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Hang a necklace on my chest,[br]hook earrings in,

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apply lipstick like paint,[br]sweep my hair back.

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Just your typical Thursday.

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We ended up better[br]get together with friends.

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At the end, you asked[br]if I need a ride home and I said yes

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because our dads[br]work for the same company,

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and you'd been to my place[br]for dinner many times,

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but I should have known

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when you began to confuse[br]kind conversation with flirtation,

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when you told me to let my hair down,

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when instead of driving me home

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toward the bright intersection[br]of lights and life,

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you took a left[br]to the road that led nowhere.

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I asked where we were going,[br]you asked was I afraid,

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and that's when my voice[br]jumped over the edge of my throat,

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landed at the bottom of my belly[br]and hid for months.

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All the different parts in me[br]turned the lights off,

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shut the blinds, locked the doors,

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I hid at the back[br]of some upstairs closet of my mind

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while someone came and broke the windows.

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You, someone, kicked the front door in,

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you took everything,

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you, someone, took me.

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It was you who dove to me[br]with a fork and a knife,

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eyes glinting with starvation[br]like you hadn't eaten in weeks.

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I was 110 pounds of fresh meat

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you'd skin and gut with your fingers

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like you were scraping[br]the inside of a cantaloupe clean.

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I screamed for my mother[br]as you nail my wrist to the ground,

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turned my breast to bruised fruit.

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This home is empty now.

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No gas, no electricity, no running water.

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The food is rotten from head to foot.

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I am layered in dust;[br]fruit flies, webs, bugs.

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Someone called the plumber,

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the stomach is backed up,[br]I've been vomiting since!

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Call the electrician[br]these eyes won't light up.

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Call the cleaners[br]to wash me up and hang me to dry.

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When you broke into my home,[br]it never felt like mine again.

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I can't even let a lover in[br]without being sick.

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I lose sleep after the first date,[br]lose my appetite,

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become more bone and less skin,[br]forget to breathe.

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Every night, my bedroom[br]becomes a psych ward

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where panic attacks wake[br]men playing doctors to keep me calm.

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Every lover who touches me[br]ends up feeling like you.

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Their fingers - you, mouths - you,

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until they're not even the ones[br]on top of me anymore; it's you.

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And I am so tired[br]of doing things your way.

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It isn't working.

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I've spent years trying to figure out[br]how I could have stopped it.

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But the sun can't stop[br]the storm from coming,

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the tree can't stop the axe.

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I can't blame me for having[br]a hole the size of your manhood

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in my chest anymore.

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It's too heavy to carry your guilt.

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I'm setting it down.

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I'm tired of decorating[br]this place with your shame

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as if it belongs to me.

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It's too much to walk around[br]with what your hands have done

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if it's not my hands that have done it.

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The truth comes to me.

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Suddenly, after years of rain,[br]the truth comes

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like sunlight pouring[br]through that open window.

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It takes a long time to get here,[br]but it all comes full circle.

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It takes a broken, twisted person

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to come searching for meaning[br]between my legs,

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but it takes a whole, complete,[br]perfectly design person to survive it.

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It takes monsters to steal souls[br]and fighters to reclaim them.

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This home is[br]what I came into this world with;

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was the first home, will be the last home.

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You can't take it.

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There is no space for you,

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no welcome mat, no extra bedrooms.

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I'm opening all the windows,[br]airing it out,

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putting roses in a vase[br]in the middle of that kitchen table,

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lighting a candle,

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loading the dishwasher with my thoughts[br]until they're spotless,

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and then, I plan to step into the bathtub,

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wash yesterday out of my hair,

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put music on, sit back, put my feet up,

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and enjoy this typical Thursday.

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(Applause)

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(Speaking) So when I first started[br]writing years ago,

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it was a private hobby,

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and then years after that,[br]it became a public one

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that I shared with[br]some family and some friends.

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And then years after that,[br]I began to share it with the Internet,

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and today, I'm lucky enough to say[br]that it's become my full-time job.

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So when I first started to travel

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to perform spoken word poetry[br]like you saw here today

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and to do readings[br]of my book "Milk and Honey,"

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family and friends always asked me,[br]"Don't you ever get homesick?"

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And on the plane rides to and from,[br]I ponder that question

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because the truth was[br]I never really got homesick.

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I mean, of course I'd lie to my mom[br]and tell her that I did,

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because what was I really going to say?

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"Hi, mom. Yeah. No.

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No, I'm actually completely fine,[br]I don't miss being home at all."

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Trust me, I did it once last year,

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and I am still hearing[br]about it a year later.

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But the truth was

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the fact that I never felt homesick[br]made me feel bad.

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"Was there something[br]wrong with me?", I thought.

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"Was I cold?"

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And after months of wandering,

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I realize that the reason[br]I never felt homesick

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was because, for me,[br]home was wherever I was.

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So let me explain.

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I'd moved over a dozen times[br]in my short life,

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so this concept that home[br]is some physical structure

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just stopped making sense a long time ago.

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How could I place the idea of home

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on places that kept on changing,[br]on temporary roofs?

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Houses were structures. Home was here.

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When I was three, home was[br]on that two-wheeler scooter

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rocketing around my village in Punjab.

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When my father left India as a refugee,

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he went to search for a home[br]in far-off countries

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while my mother tried to maintain[br]our crumbling one there.

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And years after that,

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mum and I found home

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on an airplane hurdling[br]towards a Canadian tarmac.

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And then,

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in the dozen plus moves[br]that followed that,

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the only constant I had[br]under each of those roofs

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was my art,

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it was my writing and my expression.

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So naturally, writing became like a limb.

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It became an extension of my being.

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So then, what happens

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when your home,[br]when your body is attacked?

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What happens, say, when you thrust

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something as dark as sexual abuse,

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molestation, a rape, onto a person?

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It makes you feel robbed[br]like you don't even own your body.

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They own it,[br]and you're living in it on rent.

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And this feeling[br]of homelessness within the body

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isn't restricted to only sexual violence.

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Domestic violence can make you feel[br]just as far away from yourself

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navigating this world[br]with a physical or a mental disability.

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That first treatment of chemotherapy

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will make you feel like[br]your body's turned on you,

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and you're living someplace foreign.

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The sensation of being trapped,

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being born into the wrong body altogether

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is terrifying.

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The boy or girl mercilessly bullied[br]at school and battered at home,

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the refugee, unwanted on the old shore

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and deemed[br]a scavenging vulture in the new.

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So many of us are trying[br]to reclaim our bodies from something.

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At my lowest point -

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this was right before I began[br]to take writing seriously

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and make it into an everyday practice -

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thoughts of ending my life were constant,

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and attempts weren't far off.

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I could not stand myself.

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I'd walk into the bathroom,[br]and I would seriously turn the lights off,

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I would shower in complete darkness,

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while I wouldn't have to stand there,[br]under the water,

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have to look down and see my body

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because this thing[br]had brought me so much pain

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that seeing it filled me with disgust.

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I honestly avoided mirrors[br]like one would avoid an ex at a party.

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I refused to acknowledge it,[br]look at it, appreciate it.

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I craved physical pain[br]to manage the emotional pain.

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And so I began to break the body down,

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refused to nurture it[br]with good food and good sleep,

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abused it through language[br]and vandalized it through self-harm.

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But there was one day,

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where I was crying upstairs in my room -

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and it was always Niagara Falls in my room[br]at that point in my life -

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but this day was different.

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This day the tears suddenly stopped,[br]it was like the taps went dry,

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and like a robot, I got up,

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I walked to the closet,[br]I found some charcoal,

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I found some paper,[br]and I sat, and I drew for hours.

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What I ended up with[br]was a picture of a woman,

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and in the corner of the page,[br]I'd written a poem.

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And little did I know[br]that sitting there in grade 10 or 11

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that this combination[br]of picture and poetry

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would one day lead

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to a New York Times[br]bestselling collection of poems.

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The writing was[br]a guttural response to my trauma.

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I wrote, and I wrote,[br]and I wrote, and I wrote

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with the intention to survive.

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The poetry in the books, all of that,[br]was just the side effect.

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And it was this writing[br]that led me to reclaim my body.

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You see, I come from[br]a tradition of poetry.

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Being raised in a Sikh household,

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every instance of my life from birth[br]has been informed by poetry.

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Sikh scriptures are written[br]in poetic verse.

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It was on the lips of my mother[br]as she rocked me to sleep,

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it was on the lips of her mother[br]whose own mother rocked her to sleep

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as they traveled an ox cart

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through the carnage and pillage[br]of the South Asian partition.

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The poetry is Punjabi,[br]and Persian, Braj, and Sanskrit.

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It is how millions[br]viewed life, in concert,

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constructed by the languages[br]of nomads, and warriors, and mystics.

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Even our names are picked from poems[br]written hundreds of years ago.

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When I'll decide to marry,

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it will be poetry[br]that will bond that marriage.

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And even when I pass,

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it will be poetry[br]that will mark my departure.

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And so, it comes as no surprise, I think,

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that I would use writing poetry[br]as a means to reclaim this body,

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to find home here again.

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It was this writing of poetry

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that led me to find love for myself,

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and with that love, a path lit up.

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I took that love, walked back into myself,

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to that five-year-old girl,

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to that 10-15-year old girl who was[br]still sitting inside of me scared,

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the one who had no one.

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I walked over to her,

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picked her up, and told her[br]it was going to be OK.

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We all sat in this body that day,[br]joined together as one.

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And I said to all[br]the younger versions of me,

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I said, "You are welcome here.[br]You have always been welcome here.

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This place belongs to you.

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Nothing was your fault, and I love you."

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The truth comes after years of rain,

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the truth comes like sunlight[br]pouring through that open window.

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It takes a long time to get here,[br]but it all comes full circle.

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It takes a broken, twisted person

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to come searching for meaning[br]between my legs,

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but it takes a whole, complete,

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perfectly designed person to survive it.

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It takes monsters to steal souls[br]and fighters to reclaim them.

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This home is[br]what I came into this world with,

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it was the first home,[br]will be the last home.

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You can't take it.

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There is no space for you,

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no welcome mat, no extra bedrooms.

0:17:48.107,0:17:52.107
I'm opening all the windows,[br]airing it out,

0:17:52.512,0:17:56.512
putting roses in a vase[br]in the middle of that kitchen table,

0:17:56.997,0:17:58.827
lighting a candle,

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loading the dishwasher with my thoughts[br]until they're spotless,

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and then, I plan to step[br]into that bathtub,

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wash yesterday out of my hair,

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decorate my body in gold,

0:18:14.148,0:18:20.288
put music on, sit back, put my feet up,

0:18:20.450,0:18:24.450
and enjoy this typical Thursday.

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(Applause)