1
00:00:05,713 --> 00:00:08,965
[The following talk contains
descriptions of sexual violence

2
00:00:08,966 --> 00:00:10,968
[which may be triggering to survivors.]

3
00:00:12,438 --> 00:00:14,750
[Can you help me?]

4
00:00:14,751 --> 00:00:18,654
[Can you help change the world

5
00:00:18,679 --> 00:00:22,909
[with more meaningful questions?]

6
00:00:23,078 --> 00:00:29,571
[Question everything better.]

7
00:00:32,878 --> 00:00:36,325
(Reciting) It began as a typical Thursday:

8
00:00:37,510 --> 00:00:41,510
sunlight kissed my eyelids good morning.

9
00:00:41,803 --> 00:00:44,063
I remember climbing out of bed,

10
00:00:44,407 --> 00:00:49,187
making coffee to the sound
of children playing outside,

11
00:00:50,656 --> 00:00:52,516
putting music on,

12
00:00:53,182 --> 00:00:55,472
loading the dishwasher,

13
00:00:56,395 --> 00:01:00,885
putting roses in a vase
in the middle of the kitchen table.

14
00:01:02,379 --> 00:01:08,829
Only when my apartment was spotless
would I step into the bathtub,

15
00:01:09,101 --> 00:01:12,231
wash yesterday out of my hair,

16
00:01:12,466 --> 00:01:15,425
like the walls of my home were decorated

17
00:01:15,426 --> 00:01:20,746
with frames, bookshelves,
photos I'd decorate myself.

18
00:01:21,547 --> 00:01:26,437
Hang a necklace on my chest,
hook earrings in,

19
00:01:26,690 --> 00:01:32,120
apply lipstick like paint,
sweep my hair back.

20
00:01:32,930 --> 00:01:36,800
Just your typical Thursday.

21
00:01:38,277 --> 00:01:40,746
We ended up better
get together with friends.

22
00:01:40,747 --> 00:01:44,826
At the end, you asked
if I need a ride home and I said yes

23
00:01:44,827 --> 00:01:47,336
because our dads
work for the same company,

24
00:01:47,337 --> 00:01:51,337
and you'd been to my place
for dinner many times,

25
00:01:52,410 --> 00:01:54,490
but I should have known

26
00:01:55,412 --> 00:02:00,621
when you began to confuse
kind conversation with flirtation,

27
00:02:00,622 --> 00:02:04,401
when you told me to let my hair down,

28
00:02:04,402 --> 00:02:06,511
when instead of driving me home

29
00:02:06,512 --> 00:02:10,201
toward the bright intersection
of lights and life,

30
00:02:10,202 --> 00:02:16,092
you took a left
to the road that led nowhere.

31
00:02:16,773 --> 00:02:22,402
I asked where we were going,
you asked was I afraid,

32
00:02:22,403 --> 00:02:28,082
and that's when my voice
jumped over the edge of my throat,

33
00:02:28,083 --> 00:02:32,613
landed at the bottom of my belly
and hid for months.

34
00:02:33,069 --> 00:02:36,378
All the different parts in me
turned the lights off,

35
00:02:36,379 --> 00:02:39,088
shut the blinds, locked the doors,

36
00:02:39,089 --> 00:02:43,728
I hid at the back
of some upstairs closet of my mind

37
00:02:43,729 --> 00:02:47,298
while someone came and broke the windows.

38
00:02:47,299 --> 00:02:50,308
You, someone, kicked the front door in,

39
00:02:50,309 --> 00:02:53,038
you took everything,

40
00:02:53,039 --> 00:02:57,039
you, someone, took me.

41
00:02:58,940 --> 00:03:03,600
It was you who dove to me
with a fork and a knife,

42
00:03:03,983 --> 00:03:09,913
eyes glinting with starvation
like you hadn't eaten in weeks.

43
00:03:10,505 --> 00:03:14,504
I was 110 pounds of fresh meat

44
00:03:14,505 --> 00:03:17,484
you'd skin and gut with your fingers

45
00:03:17,485 --> 00:03:21,725
like you were scraping
the inside of a cantaloupe clean.

46
00:03:22,642 --> 00:03:27,471
I screamed for my mother
as you nail my wrist to the ground,

47
00:03:27,472 --> 00:03:30,662
turned my breast to bruised fruit.

48
00:03:31,072 --> 00:03:34,772
This home is empty now.

49
00:03:35,468 --> 00:03:40,668
No gas, no electricity, no running water.

50
00:03:41,138 --> 00:03:44,067
The food is rotten from head to foot.

51
00:03:44,068 --> 00:03:48,067
I am layered in dust;
fruit flies, webs, bugs.

52
00:03:48,068 --> 00:03:49,947
Someone called the plumber,

53
00:03:49,948 --> 00:03:53,189
the stomach is backed up,
I've been vomiting since!

54
00:03:53,190 --> 00:03:56,518
Call the electrician
these eyes won't light up.

55
00:03:56,519 --> 00:04:00,738
Call the cleaners
to wash me up and hang me to dry.

56
00:04:00,739 --> 00:04:05,519
When you broke into my home,
it never felt like mine again.

57
00:04:06,507 --> 00:04:10,827
I can't even let a lover in
without being sick.

58
00:04:11,577 --> 00:04:16,736
I lose sleep after the first date,
lose my appetite,

59
00:04:16,737 --> 00:04:22,247
become more bone and less skin,
forget to breathe.

60
00:04:23,048 --> 00:04:26,887
Every night, my bedroom
becomes a psych ward

61
00:04:26,888 --> 00:04:31,628
where panic attacks wake
men playing doctors to keep me calm.

62
00:04:32,698 --> 00:04:37,198
Every lover who touches me
ends up feeling like you.

63
00:04:37,774 --> 00:04:40,503
Their fingers - you, mouths - you,

64
00:04:40,504 --> 00:04:44,694
until they're not even the ones
on top of me anymore; it's you.

65
00:04:45,240 --> 00:04:50,350
And I am so tired
of doing things your way.

66
00:04:50,930 --> 00:04:52,610
It isn't working.

67
00:04:53,162 --> 00:04:56,801
I've spent years trying to figure out
how I could have stopped it.

68
00:04:56,802 --> 00:05:00,611
But the sun can't stop
the storm from coming,

69
00:05:00,612 --> 00:05:03,851
the tree can't stop the axe.

70
00:05:03,852 --> 00:05:09,301
I can't blame me for having
a hole the size of your manhood

71
00:05:09,302 --> 00:05:11,552
in my chest anymore.

72
00:05:12,101 --> 00:05:14,901
It's too heavy to carry your guilt.

73
00:05:15,418 --> 00:05:17,368
I'm setting it down.

74
00:05:17,516 --> 00:05:21,515
I'm tired of decorating
this place with your shame

75
00:05:21,516 --> 00:05:23,485
as if it belongs to me.

76
00:05:23,486 --> 00:05:27,155
It's too much to walk around
with what your hands have done

77
00:05:27,156 --> 00:05:30,506
if it's not my hands that have done it.

78
00:05:30,780 --> 00:05:33,909
The truth comes to me.

79
00:05:33,910 --> 00:05:38,609
Suddenly, after years of rain,
the truth comes

80
00:05:38,610 --> 00:05:42,262
like sunlight pouring
through that open window.

81
00:05:42,263 --> 00:05:47,873
It takes a long time to get here,
but it all comes full circle.

82
00:05:48,608 --> 00:05:51,037
It takes a broken, twisted person

83
00:05:51,038 --> 00:05:54,217
to come searching for meaning
between my legs,

84
00:05:54,218 --> 00:06:01,198
but it takes a whole, complete,
perfectly design person to survive it.

85
00:06:01,925 --> 00:06:06,604
It takes monsters to steal souls
and fighters to reclaim them.

86
00:06:06,605 --> 00:06:10,684
This home is
what I came into this world with;

87
00:06:10,685 --> 00:06:14,605
was the first home, will be the last home.

88
00:06:14,896 --> 00:06:16,476
You can't take it.

89
00:06:16,938 --> 00:06:19,258
There is no space for you,

90
00:06:19,806 --> 00:06:24,976
no welcome mat, no extra bedrooms.

91
00:06:25,715 --> 00:06:29,715
I'm opening all the windows,
airing it out,

92
00:06:30,317 --> 00:06:35,027
putting roses in a vase
in the middle of that kitchen table,

93
00:06:35,275 --> 00:06:37,055
lighting a candle,

94
00:06:37,250 --> 00:06:41,950
loading the dishwasher with my thoughts
until they're spotless,

95
00:06:42,114 --> 00:06:46,834
and then, I plan to step into the bathtub,

96
00:06:47,162 --> 00:06:50,092
wash yesterday out of my hair,

97
00:06:50,887 --> 00:06:56,466
put music on, sit back, put my feet up,

98
00:06:56,467 --> 00:07:00,407
and enjoy this typical Thursday.

99
00:07:01,535 --> 00:07:03,225
(Applause)

100
00:07:08,056 --> 00:07:12,055
(Speaking) So when I first started
writing years ago,

101
00:07:12,056 --> 00:07:14,046
it was a private hobby,

102
00:07:15,191 --> 00:07:18,070
and then years after that,
it became a public one

103
00:07:18,071 --> 00:07:21,931
that I shared with
some family and some friends.

104
00:07:23,221 --> 00:07:27,210
And then years after that,
I began to share it with the Internet,

105
00:07:27,211 --> 00:07:31,941
and today, I'm lucky enough to say
that it's become my full-time job.

106
00:07:33,968 --> 00:07:35,637
So when I first started to travel

107
00:07:35,638 --> 00:07:38,597
to perform spoken word poetry
like you saw here today

108
00:07:38,598 --> 00:07:42,597
and to do readings
of my book "Milk and Honey,"

109
00:07:42,598 --> 00:07:48,428
family and friends always asked me,
"Don't you ever get homesick?"

110
00:07:49,704 --> 00:07:54,544
And on the plane rides to and from,
I ponder that question

111
00:07:55,858 --> 00:08:01,338
because the truth was
I never really got homesick.

112
00:08:01,648 --> 00:08:04,607
I mean, of course I'd lie to my mom
and tell her that I did,

113
00:08:04,608 --> 00:08:06,967
because what was I really going to say?

114
00:08:06,968 --> 00:08:09,228
"Hi, mom. Yeah. No.

115
00:08:09,658 --> 00:08:14,328
No, I'm actually completely fine,
I don't miss being home at all."

116
00:08:15,308 --> 00:08:17,897
Trust me, I did it once last year,

117
00:08:17,898 --> 00:08:21,178
and I am still hearing
about it a year later.

118
00:08:22,489 --> 00:08:24,248
But the truth was

119
00:08:24,249 --> 00:08:28,418
the fact that I never felt homesick
made me feel bad.

120
00:08:28,419 --> 00:08:31,438
"Was there something
wrong with me?", I thought.

121
00:08:31,439 --> 00:08:33,029
"Was I cold?"

122
00:08:34,246 --> 00:08:37,027
And after months of wandering,

123
00:08:37,802 --> 00:08:42,292
I realize that the reason
I never felt homesick

124
00:08:42,840 --> 00:08:48,230
was because, for me,
home was wherever I was.

125
00:08:49,307 --> 00:08:51,047
So let me explain.

126
00:08:52,073 --> 00:08:56,073
I'd moved over a dozen times
in my short life,

127
00:08:56,945 --> 00:09:01,134
so this concept that home
is some physical structure

128
00:09:01,135 --> 00:09:04,065
just stopped making sense a long time ago.

129
00:09:04,966 --> 00:09:07,555
How could I place the idea of home

130
00:09:07,556 --> 00:09:11,916
on places that kept on changing,
on temporary roofs?

131
00:09:12,803 --> 00:09:18,033
Houses were structures. Home was here.

132
00:09:19,548 --> 00:09:24,267
When I was three, home was
on that two-wheeler scooter

133
00:09:24,268 --> 00:09:28,268
rocketing around my village in Punjab.

134
00:09:29,096 --> 00:09:33,095
When my father left India as a refugee,

135
00:09:33,096 --> 00:09:36,765
he went to search for a home
in far-off countries

136
00:09:36,766 --> 00:09:40,766
while my mother tried to maintain
our crumbling one there.

137
00:09:42,071 --> 00:09:43,651
And years after that,

138
00:09:44,001 --> 00:09:46,660
mum and I found home

139
00:09:46,661 --> 00:09:50,781
on an airplane hurdling
towards a Canadian tarmac.

140
00:09:52,735 --> 00:09:53,754
And then,

141
00:09:53,755 --> 00:09:56,854
in the dozen plus moves
that followed that,

142
00:09:56,855 --> 00:09:59,544
the only constant I had
under each of those roofs

143
00:09:59,545 --> 00:10:00,884
was my art,

144
00:10:00,885 --> 00:10:03,605
it was my writing and my expression.

145
00:10:04,649 --> 00:10:09,839
So naturally, writing became like a limb.

146
00:10:10,529 --> 00:10:13,769
It became an extension of my being.

147
00:10:16,457 --> 00:10:18,927
So then, what happens

148
00:10:19,291 --> 00:10:24,071
when your home,
when your body is attacked?

149
00:10:24,756 --> 00:10:27,615
What happens, say, when you thrust

150
00:10:27,616 --> 00:10:31,303
something as dark as sexual abuse,

151
00:10:31,328 --> 00:10:35,340
molestation, a rape, onto a person?

152
00:10:36,790 --> 00:10:40,789
It makes you feel robbed
like you don't even own your body.

153
00:10:40,790 --> 00:10:44,790
They own it,
and you're living in it on rent.

154
00:10:46,088 --> 00:10:49,277
And this feeling
of homelessness within the body

155
00:10:49,278 --> 00:10:53,378
isn't restricted to only sexual violence.

156
00:10:54,313 --> 00:11:00,503
Domestic violence can make you feel
just as far away from yourself

157
00:11:01,229 --> 00:11:06,339
navigating this world
with a physical or a mental disability.

158
00:11:08,024 --> 00:11:10,183
That first treatment of chemotherapy

159
00:11:10,184 --> 00:11:13,703
will make you feel like
your body's turned on you,

160
00:11:13,704 --> 00:11:16,244
and you're living someplace foreign.

161
00:11:17,538 --> 00:11:21,197
The sensation of being trapped,

162
00:11:21,198 --> 00:11:24,197
being born into the wrong body altogether

163
00:11:24,198 --> 00:11:26,138
is terrifying.

164
00:11:27,202 --> 00:11:32,442
The boy or girl mercilessly bullied
at school and battered at home,

165
00:11:32,985 --> 00:11:37,454
the refugee, unwanted on the old shore

166
00:11:37,455 --> 00:11:41,455
and deemed
a scavenging vulture in the new.

167
00:11:42,506 --> 00:11:46,686
So many of us are trying
to reclaim our bodies from something.

168
00:11:48,971 --> 00:11:51,021
At my lowest point -

169
00:11:51,461 --> 00:11:54,240
this was right before I began
to take writing seriously

170
00:11:54,241 --> 00:11:56,791
and make it into an everyday practice -

171
00:11:57,409 --> 00:12:01,319
thoughts of ending my life were constant,

172
00:12:01,715 --> 00:12:04,035
and attempts weren't far off.

173
00:12:04,402 --> 00:12:08,482
I could not stand myself.

174
00:12:09,481 --> 00:12:12,961
I'd walk into the bathroom,
and I would seriously turn the lights off,

175
00:12:13,937 --> 00:12:16,376
I would shower in complete darkness,

176
00:12:16,377 --> 00:12:18,936
while I wouldn't have to stand there,
under the water,

177
00:12:18,937 --> 00:12:21,687
have to look down and see my body

178
00:12:22,165 --> 00:12:24,524
because this thing
had brought me so much pain

179
00:12:24,525 --> 00:12:28,525
that seeing it filled me with disgust.

180
00:12:29,828 --> 00:12:34,408
I honestly avoided mirrors
like one would avoid an ex at a party.

181
00:12:35,618 --> 00:12:40,638
I refused to acknowledge it,
look at it, appreciate it.

182
00:12:42,350 --> 00:12:46,730
I craved physical pain
to manage the emotional pain.

183
00:12:47,206 --> 00:12:49,876
And so I began to break the body down,

184
00:12:50,891 --> 00:12:54,891
refused to nurture it
with good food and good sleep,

185
00:12:55,759 --> 00:13:00,559
abused it through language
and vandalized it through self-harm.

186
00:13:02,589 --> 00:13:04,578
But there was one day,

187
00:13:04,579 --> 00:13:07,238
where I was crying upstairs in my room -

188
00:13:07,239 --> 00:13:11,239
and it was always Niagara Falls in my room
at that point in my life -

189
00:13:11,569 --> 00:13:13,398
but this day was different.

190
00:13:13,399 --> 00:13:19,609
This day the tears suddenly stopped,
it was like the taps went dry,

191
00:13:20,339 --> 00:13:23,018
and like a robot, I got up,

192
00:13:23,019 --> 00:13:27,058
I walked to the closet,
I found some charcoal,

193
00:13:27,059 --> 00:13:33,099
I found some paper,
and I sat, and I drew for hours.

194
00:13:34,498 --> 00:13:38,847
What I ended up with
was a picture of a woman,

195
00:13:38,848 --> 00:13:42,068
and in the corner of the page,
I'd written a poem.

196
00:13:42,952 --> 00:13:46,951
And little did I know
that sitting there in grade 10 or 11

197
00:13:46,952 --> 00:13:50,391
that this combination
of picture and poetry

198
00:13:50,392 --> 00:13:51,871
would one day lead

199
00:13:51,872 --> 00:13:55,872
to a New York Times
bestselling collection of poems.

200
00:13:56,705 --> 00:14:01,935
The writing was
a guttural response to my trauma.

201
00:14:02,326 --> 00:14:05,235
I wrote, and I wrote,
and I wrote, and I wrote

202
00:14:05,236 --> 00:14:08,726
with the intention to survive.

203
00:14:09,015 --> 00:14:13,325
The poetry in the books, all of that,
was just the side effect.

204
00:14:15,063 --> 00:14:20,253
And it was this writing
that led me to reclaim my body.

205
00:14:21,897 --> 00:14:26,337
You see, I come from
a tradition of poetry.

206
00:14:27,314 --> 00:14:30,243
Being raised in a Sikh household,

207
00:14:30,244 --> 00:14:35,364
every instance of my life from birth
has been informed by poetry.

208
00:14:36,187 --> 00:14:40,187
Sikh scriptures are written
in poetic verse.

209
00:14:40,654 --> 00:14:44,744
It was on the lips of my mother
as she rocked me to sleep,

210
00:14:45,326 --> 00:14:50,765
it was on the lips of her mother
whose own mother rocked her to sleep

211
00:14:50,766 --> 00:14:53,635
as they traveled an ox cart

212
00:14:53,636 --> 00:14:58,406
through the carnage and pillage
of the South Asian partition.

213
00:14:59,173 --> 00:15:05,953
The poetry is Punjabi,
and Persian, Braj, and Sanskrit.

214
00:15:06,836 --> 00:15:11,455
It is how millions
viewed life, in concert,

215
00:15:11,456 --> 00:15:16,896
constructed by the languages
of nomads, and warriors, and mystics.

216
00:15:17,378 --> 00:15:21,528
Even our names are picked from poems
written hundreds of years ago.

217
00:15:22,748 --> 00:15:24,828
When I'll decide to marry,

218
00:15:25,264 --> 00:15:29,264
it will be poetry
that will bond that marriage.

219
00:15:29,811 --> 00:15:32,070
And even when I pass,

220
00:15:32,071 --> 00:15:36,471
it will be poetry
that will mark my departure.

221
00:15:37,591 --> 00:15:41,591
And so, it comes as no surprise, I think,

222
00:15:41,828 --> 00:15:47,187
that I would use writing poetry
as a means to reclaim this body,

223
00:15:47,188 --> 00:15:50,568
to find home here again.

224
00:15:51,977 --> 00:15:55,388
It was this writing of poetry

225
00:15:55,413 --> 00:15:59,881
that led me to find love for myself,

226
00:16:00,817 --> 00:16:04,817
and with that love, a path lit up.

227
00:16:05,476 --> 00:16:10,675
I took that love, walked back into myself,

228
00:16:10,676 --> 00:16:13,165
to that five-year-old girl,

229
00:16:13,166 --> 00:16:19,666
to that 10-15-year old girl who was
still sitting inside of me scared,

230
00:16:20,283 --> 00:16:22,683
the one who had no one.

231
00:16:23,192 --> 00:16:25,161
I walked over to her,

232
00:16:25,162 --> 00:16:29,162
picked her up, and told her
it was going to be OK.

233
00:16:30,157 --> 00:16:37,077
We all sat in this body that day,
joined together as one.

234
00:16:37,246 --> 00:16:40,615
And I said to all
the younger versions of me,

235
00:16:40,616 --> 00:16:46,125
I said, "You are welcome here.
You have always been welcome here.

236
00:16:46,126 --> 00:16:48,315
This place belongs to you.

237
00:16:48,316 --> 00:16:52,886
Nothing was your fault, and I love you."

238
00:16:54,029 --> 00:16:58,029
The truth comes after years of rain,

239
00:16:58,730 --> 00:17:03,499
the truth comes like sunlight
pouring through that open window.

240
00:17:03,500 --> 00:17:09,810
It takes a long time to get here,
but it all comes full circle.

241
00:17:10,333 --> 00:17:12,762
It takes a broken, twisted person

242
00:17:12,762 --> 00:17:16,271
to come searching for meaning
between my legs,

243
00:17:16,272 --> 00:17:19,397
but it takes a whole, complete,

244
00:17:19,423 --> 00:17:23,656
perfectly designed person to survive it.

245
00:17:24,471 --> 00:17:28,940
It takes monsters to steal souls
and fighters to reclaim them.

246
00:17:28,941 --> 00:17:32,941
This home is
what I came into this world with,

247
00:17:33,330 --> 00:17:37,330
it was the first home,
will be the last home.

248
00:17:37,523 --> 00:17:39,303
You can't take it.

249
00:17:39,790 --> 00:17:43,069
There is no space for you,

250
00:17:43,094 --> 00:17:47,634
no welcome mat, no extra bedrooms.

251
00:17:48,107 --> 00:17:52,107
I'm opening all the windows,
airing it out,

252
00:17:52,512 --> 00:17:56,512
putting roses in a vase
in the middle of that kitchen table,

253
00:17:56,997 --> 00:17:58,827
lighting a candle,

254
00:17:59,388 --> 00:18:04,077
loading the dishwasher with my thoughts
until they're spotless,

255
00:18:04,078 --> 00:18:08,077
and then, I plan to step
into that bathtub,

256
00:18:08,078 --> 00:18:11,227
wash yesterday out of my hair,

257
00:18:11,228 --> 00:18:14,147
decorate my body in gold,

258
00:18:14,148 --> 00:18:20,288
put music on, sit back, put my feet up,

259
00:18:20,450 --> 00:18:24,450
and enjoy this typical Thursday.

260
00:18:27,508 --> 00:18:28,798
(Applause)