"Forgive yourself for the decisions you have made,
the ones you still call mistakes when you tuck them in at night."
Kay encourages self-love and compassion in her poetry. In "The Type," she writes about love and romance, reminding her reader to be kind to themselves and to put themselves first. In this passage, she is speaking about heartbreak and tells her reader to forgive themselves for whatever decisions they have made.
“There was no secret I didn’t tell him, there was no moment I didn’t share.
We didn’t grow up, we grew in, like ivy wrapping,
moulding each other into perfect yins and yangs."
In "Private Parts," Kay writes about how relationships can consume a person's life and identity. The speaker has been in a relationship like this, where they grew together, almost becoming intertwined like ivy. This is a powerful image and describes what can happen when young people fall in love and grow together.
"She's gonna learn that this life will hit you,
hard, in the face, wait for you to
get back up so it can kick you in
the stomach."
This is the opening to Kay's poem "B (If I Should Have a Daughter,) a poem where she is speaking to an imagined daughter. Kay gives her daughter advice in this poem, beginning with this hard-hitting statement. Here, the speaker tells her daughter that life is difficult, and that she is likely to experience some very difficult moments.
