“The poem takes its title from the best-selling 1981 self-help book by Harold Kushner. I wrote this poem during my fellowship year at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. I had come to the center with the plan to write into my Jewish heritage and my feelings about it, which is some of what I'm doing in this poem, but I also found myself thinking a lot about patriarchy and rape culture—the things I am always thinking about—and thinking in particular about the ways in which I've sold my body to men. The speaker here is a much younger me trying to figure out how to survive inside a rape culture of which she’s just becoming aware and which is seemingly everywhere and endless—and we’re both feeling pretty defeated by it.”
—Lynn Melnick