Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Welcome

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Begin Reading

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Newsletters

  Copyright

  Begin Reading

  Table of Contents

  Newsletters

  Copyright Page

  In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  This poem is for TG.

  Everyone needs a place. It shouldn’t be inside of someone else.

  —Richard Siken

  If you grow up the type of woman men want to look at, you can let them look at you.

  Do not mistake eyes for hands.

  Or windows. Or mirrors.

  Let them see what a woman looks like.

  They may not have ever seen one before.

  If you grow up the type of woman men want to touch,

  you can let them touch you.

  Sometimes it is not you they are reaching for.

  Sometimes it is a bottle. A door. A sandwich.

  A Pulitzer. Another woman.

  But their hands found you first.

  Do not mistake yourself for a guardian.

  Or a muse.

  Or a promise.

  Or a victim.

  Or a snack.

  You are a woman.

  Skin and bones.

  Veins and nerves.

  Hair and sweat.

  You are not made of metaphors.

  Not apologies.

  Not excuses.

  If you grow up the type of woman men want to hold, you can let them hold you.

  All day they practice keeping their bodies upright—

  even after all this evolving, it still feels unnatural,

  still pulls tight the muscles, strains the arms and spine.

  Only some men want to learn what it feels like

  to wrap themselves into a question mark around you,

  admit they do not have the answers they thought

  they would have by now;

  some men will want to hold you like The Answer.

  You are not the problem.

  You are not the poem or the punchline or the riddle or the joke.

  Woman. If you grow up the type men want to love,

  you can let them love you.

  Being loved is not the same thing as loving.

  When you fall in love, it is discovering the ocean

  after years of puddle jumping.

  It is realizing you have hands.

  It is reaching for the tightrope

  when the crowds have all gone home.

  Do not spend time wondering if you are

  the type of woman men will hurt.

  If he leaves you with a car-alarm heart,

  you may learn to sing along.

  It is hard to stop loving the ocean.

  Even after it has left you gasping, salty.

  Forgive yourself for the decisions you have made,

  the ones you still call mistakes

  when you tuck them in at night.

  And know this.

  Know you are the type of woman

  who is looking for a place to call yours.

  Let the statues crumble.

  You have always been the place.

  You are a woman who can build it yourself.

  You were born to build.

  Acknowledgments

  With utmost thanks to Sophia Janowitz, Jan Kawamura-Kay, Jeffrey Kay, PK, Sarah Wainwright, Joel Janowitz, Anne Lilly, Anna Pease, Esther Burson, Andrew Bellisari, Sofia Solomon, Cécile Garcia, Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, Rachel McKibbens & the Pink Door Retreat, Hedgebrook, Jacqueline Novogratz, Seth Godin, Yfat Reiss Gendell, Mauro DiPreta,

  and all the women who teach me how to build.

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Sarah Kay is a poet from New York City who was born in 1988. She has been invited to share her poetry on such diverse stages as the 2011 TED conference; the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne, Australia; the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark; and Carnegie Hall in New York City, among hundreds of other venues around the world. She is the author of two additional poetry books: B (Hachette Books) and No Matter the Wreckage (Write Bloody Publishing). Sarah is the founder and co-director of Project VOICE, an organization that brings spoken word poetry to schools and communities around the world.

  Sophia Janowitz has created chickens out of bathmats for the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center, chocolate buttons for a pop-up store in Boston, a poster for a musical premiering at the Jewish Refugees Museum in Shanghai, and a cardboard levitating house for a play premiering in New York City. She is currently studying typography design in Paris.

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  Copyright

  Copyright © 2016 by Sarah Kay

  Cover illustration by Sophia Janowitz

  Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Illustrations © 2016 by Sophia Janowitz

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Hachette Books

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

  hachettebookgroup.com

  First ebook edition: February 2016

  Hachette Books is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The Hachette Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-316-38661-6

  E3-20180604-JV-PC

 

 

  Sarah Kay, The Type

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