Consent Form

Content Warning:

This poem contains references to sexual assault, medical trauma, and institutional violence.

She signed the line they traced across her thigh

Thigh parted by latex hands and legal silence

Silence thick as gauze packed inside her body

Body catalogued before she ever said her name

Name scrawled crooked on a form she never saw

Saw the nurse nod while her eyelids fluttered

Fluttered when the cold spread up the syringe

Syringe labeled standard, standard is protocol

Protocol does not require her to be awake

Awake was not a box they needed to check

***

Check the cervix, swab the lip, photograph the tear

Tear her story down to tissue and timestamp

Timestamp the flesh that used to belong to her

Her was a pronoun, then a name, reduced to case

Case open like her knees in restraint

Restraint without bruises is still restraint

Restraint is what they call it when it’s clean

Clean is what they needed the record to be

Be still, they said, and she was

Was that consent or just the failure to resist

***

Resist is a word that burns inside her throat

Throat raw from the tube, the no, the gag

Gag reflex doesn’t count in a courtroom

Courtroom echo says slut before survivor

Survivor means she lived through what they filmed

Filmed means proof, proof means she was present

Present is a synonym for available

Available becomes the opposite of pure

Pure is what they call the girl who died

Died is easier than living like this

***

This is what they do with women like her

Her wrists red from the IV after the fight

Fight’s a word they sanctify for men

Men can rape, and still be crowned gods

Gods don’t need consent to enter temples

Temples desecrate without blood on the floor

Floor cold as the table where she woke

Woke with legs spread and memory gone

Gone in silence, labeled absent during

During the exam, she never said no

***

No is a word they claim to search for

For the record, she never screamed

Screamed won't hold on paper

Paper signs what the mouth cannot unsay

Unsay the split, the scan, the saline

Saline dripping as if the body could forget

Forget she was naked when they called her brave

Brave doesn’t mean she said yes

Yes is not a word she gave

Gave is what they called it when he trespassed

***

Trespassed like scripture against the altar skin

Skin that cleaves now only on her terms

Terms she writes without their forms or pens

Pens don’t speak but she does

***

Does she consent to breath, to heat, to voice

Voice says stay, says no, says mine

Mine like flame, like blood, like vow

Vow her name into the mouth of her own body

***

Body that signs itself back into being

Being is hers, not something they grant

Grant her silence, or fire, or thunder

Thunder that names what she opens — and why