Milk and Honey

An unnamed man asks the speaker how she can be so nice. She replies that having people not be nice to her has shaped her. Incidents from the speaker’s childhood which, along with cultural teachings, taught her that her body is an object to be used by others against her will. The speaker reveals that she has been to a child psychologist to discuss a sexual violation committed by a relative. This and her father’s emotional absence now cause her to search for paternal substitutes and to curtail her speech. 

The speaker feels like a flower that was never tended; she warns fathers that if they react in anger but call it affection, they are teaching their daughters to look for similarly destructive relationships. 

Although the speaker has engaged in sexual intercourse, it was not meaningful emotionally. There is a cultural idea that a woman who is self-protective brings shame upon her family. The speaker indicates that those who have created these obstacles for her also unfairly demand she overcome them.

The speaker reassures herself that her experience with sexual violation will not destroy her. She develops depression, veering from feelings of disappointment to anger, particularly at the generational trauma that runs through her family’s history.