milk n. 1. Nutritious and essential substance that is fed to a child by his or her mother in infancy. Warm. Not remembered. 2. White processed and pasteurized liquid served cold from the fridge. 3. Something you do not cry over when spilled. 4. Substance which turns my brother and me into baby cows as we drink it by the pint from plastic jugs with straws at night while watching television. Something I get teased for when ordered in a restaurant instead of a soda or water. It is what will make me grow strong bones and get taller, so says my mother, giving my towering brother as an example of this. It is what will keep my knees from crumbling like my grandmother’s, leaving me unable to walk for ten years as I grow more obese, so says my father as he watches his mother slip away.
A cradle to grave prose-poetry piece written for my creative writing class. The assignment was to imitate a dictionary definition, but use your past experience to define a word.
