While I can not relate to the sexual assault that Kenyon experienced as a child, I can sympathize with her language because of the feelings her poem evokes. The poem brings awareness to a difficult topic, and it makes the reader uncomfortable, something that is necessary in order to call attention to a matter. The reader can piece together moments where the poet felt oppressed, and that in itself is something most people have felt. For example, in the third stanza she describes the lessons her father taught her. He instilled a fear in her that the now didn't truly matter, instead, that the afterlife mattered more. He made the present insignificant and used god as an excuse for his immoral actions. It made her despise god and see him as a tool for people to throw away the present. I can empathize with her anger because I've been in a similar situation all of my life. The way she expresses those repressed feelings calls back negative moments in my own mind.
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