Summary
The speaker in "did you think i was a city" addresses her ex-boyfriend concerning the way he undervalued her. She asks him whether he thought she was a city large enough for a short weekend vacation, when she considers herself to be the surrounding town. In this metaphor, she is the town that her ex has never heard of but always passes through on his way to somewhere else. There are no neon lights, skyscrapers, statues, or other exciting city features. Instead, this town contains thunder. The speaker develops her comparative metaphor (city versus town) by claiming that she makes bridges tremble.
The speaker then states that she is not comparable to street meat, but to homemade jam. She is thick enough to cut and is the sweetest thing that her ex-boyfriend's lips will touch. She is not comparable to police sirens—instead, she claims to be the crackle of a fireplace that could burn her ex-boyfriend. He would not be able to stop looking at her because of her beauty, despite the possibility of burning.
The speaker identifies not as a hotel room, but as the feeling of home. She is not the whiskey her ex-boyfriend wants, but the water that is essential for his survival. The speaker demands that her ex not come to her with expectations and try to metaphorically "make a vacation" out of her.
Analysis
In this untitled poem (referred to as "did you think i was a city" in this guide), the speaker addresses someone who has devalued her. Likely this person is an ex-lover, as many of the poems in this section of the collection ("the breaking") deal with the turbulent end of a relationship. This poem is placed in the section called "the breaking," which also leads to the conclusion that the "you" in this poem is an ex-boyfriend. Like all of Kaur's poems, this free verse poem contains spare punctuation and lowercase letters. "did you think i was a city" is composed of an extended metaphor communicated in one stanza.
In the first lines, the speaker incredulously asks her ex-boyfriend whether he thought that she was "a city / big enough for a weekend getaway." A weekend getaway is a short holiday used to take a break from the normal routine of life. In a city big enough for a weekend getaway, one can experience anonymity. As this is a metaphor for a past relationship, this means that the speaker feels used by her former boyfriend. In other words, she feels that he used her as an escape from his normal routine without intending to make her a major priority.
Continuing on with the metaphor of comparing the speaker to a big city, she identifies as the town surrounding the city in the second line. This sets up the structure of the poem: the speaker states what she is not, and then personally identifies as something else through metaphor. The speaker characterizes herself as a small town that her ex-boyfriend did not know the name of but that he always passed through on the way to the city. The drawing that accompanies this poem is a single line depicting a cityscape composed of skyscrapers. It resembles an irregular heartbeat line, which contributes to the portrayal of cities and heartbreak in the poem.
In the speaker's metaphorical town, there are no neon lights, skyscrapers, or statues—a few defining characteristics of cities. Rather than these human-created qualities, the speaker's town has thunder, (a natural phenomenon). The line "for i make bridges tremble" implies the speaker's sense of power. The phrase "for i" has a bygone, formal air to it which helps establish the speaker's sense of her own power. The mention of bridges is interesting because bridges could be present either in big cities or small towns. Regardless of where they are located, bridges symbolically represent connection: they are structures that connect two separated spaces, as well as forms of travel between these two spaces. Though the mention of trembling bridges seems random, it evokes a sense of fraught connection.
Continuing with city versus town metaphors, the speaker states that she is not the meat sold on city streets, but rather is homemade jam. Kaur herself has said that she is vegetarian (a tradition in Sikh communities), and so the metaphor of street meat is likely meant to provoke distaste. The way that the words "street meat" rhyme and easily roll off the tongue is something that the speaker in these poems rejects as an identity. For example, the speaker in "you tell me to quiet down..." claims that she is not "easy to swallow" nor "easy for the mind to follow." The identification with homemade jam evokes the care and time it takes to make this treat.
Kaur writes about jam as "thick enough to cut the sweetest / thing your lips will touch." Due to the lack of punctuation, these lines could have two meanings. The first is that the thickness (representing the speaker's complexity as a person) is capable of cutting (harming) her ex-boyfriend's sense of sweetness. This sweetness could mean the one-dimensional image the speaker's former boyfriend had of her, similar to the way she felt characterized as a "weekend getaway." The other possible meaning of these lines is that they are two thoughts unseparated by a line break or punctuation: that the speaker (compared to jam) is thick enough to cut and also is the "sweetest / thing" her ex-boyfriend's lips ever touched. Like the earlier mention of trembling bridges, the slant rhyme of "cut" and "touch" evokes a fraught connection.
Moving on to another comparison, the speaker claims not to be police sirens but rather the crackle of a fireplace. Both these things involve lights and are capable of evoking either feelings of danger or safety in different people. Whereas one would constantly hear police sirens in a large and populated city, sirens are less common in a small town. Fireplaces themselves don't crackle, but Kaur is most likely referring to the fire itself. The speaker tells her former boyfriend "i'd burn you and you still / couldn't take your eyes off me," which suggests that the speaker herself engaged in harmful behavior in the relationship. Like thunder, fire is a natural force that is not always controllable. However, the use of "would" in this section opens the possibility that the speaker did not in fact metaphorically burn her former boyfriend. In her imagination, however, she could have.
In the next comparison, the speaker states that she is not a hotel room, but rather is home itself. A home is a long-term place meant to provide a sense of safety and shelter, while a hotel room aligns with the "weekend getaway" mentioned earlier in the poem. Both "hotel" and "home" begin with the same sound ("ho"), but they end differently. The use of alliteration continues on in the next lines, giving the poem a sense of rhythm. The speaker rejects identifying as "the whiskey you want," and states that she is "the water you need." Again, the speaker rejects being characterized as a fast and expendable pleasure. Instead, she considers herself to be a long-term and nourishing force.
In the final lines of the poem, the speaker tells her former boyfriend not to "come here with expectations" and try to make a vacation out of her. It is not clear what these "expectations" are beyond the simple desire for fast and cheap companionship. For the speaker, a small town, and all the homely ways of small-town life, are preferable to the fast-paced city lifestyle, and she compares herself to the qualities of a small town while rejecting the qualities of a big city. Though this metaphor is sustained throughout the poem, the comparisons are not always consistent because the speaker identifies with thunder and fire, which have the potential for danger. Overall, the speaker in "did you think i was a city" clearly communicates a desire to be valued, admired, committed to, and treated respectfully by her partner.
