Behind the Silence: What Writing “Consent” Taught Me.

When I submitted Consent to Vocal’s “I Didn’t Say That Out Loud” Challenge, I wasn’t sure what would happen. I honestly didn’t expect to place. I wrote the poem from a very real, very personal place and let it go with the quiet hope that someone might read it and feel seen. When I found out I came second, I was stunned. Grateful. Emotional. It’s the kind of encouragement you don’t realize you need until it finds you.

So first, thank you to the Vocal team. Thank you to the judges. And thank you to the other writers who also shared work in that challenge.

I read so many brave, beautiful entries that stayed with me long after.

Now that the dust has settled a bit, I wanted to share a little more about where Consent came from and why writing it mattered so much to me.

The challenge theme was about saying the thing we usually keep inside. Right away, the word “consent” rose to the surface for me, not just as a topic, but as a memory, a question, a weight. I’ve carried a complicated relationship with that word for a long time, and for a long time, I didn’t talk about it. Not out loud. Not even really to myself.

Because consent is supposed to be simple, right? Yes or no. A binary. But life is rarely that clean. Sometimes you say yes because you’re afraid to say no. Sometimes you stay quiet because you don’t want to disappoint someone or make things weird. Sometimes you don’t even know what your boundaries are until someone walks straight past them. And sometimes you don’t realize how much it hurt until weeks or years later, when you finally feel safe enough to feel it.

Writing Consent gave me the space to name some of those moments not just for myself, but for anyone else who’s ever had to learn about boundaries the hard way.

I think a lot about regret too. Not in a dramatic way. Just in that soft, achey way that creeps in when you realize you didn’t have the tools back then that you have now. That you didn’t know what you deserved. That maybe, deep down, you still don’t always know.

But regret, when it’s met with reflection, can become something beautiful. It can become a lesson. A lantern. A map. It can help someone else avoid a silence you didn’t know how to break. That’s what I hope Consent does in its small way. Not to lecture or explain, but just to say: you’re not alone if you’re still figuring it out. Most of us are.

This is why Vocal means so much to me.

It’s not just a place to post your writing and walk away. It’s a space where stories are taken seriously. Where challenges like this one invite us to go deeper. To be bold. To speak what we’ve never spoken. And in doing so, to find readers who will meet us there with empathy and open eyes.

For me, Vocal has become more than a platform—it’s a part of my writing practice. It reminds me to show up with intention. To craft something honest. To take a risk. And then to hit publish even when my hands are shaking.

That’s what this piece was. A risk. A little terrifying. But also freeing. And I’m so thankful that Vocal created a space for that kind of voice to be heard.

If you're a writer and you’re reading this: keep going. Say the thing you haven’t said yet. Write the piece that makes you a little nervous. The truth has a way of landing exactly where it’s needed, even if you never hear about it.

And to the people behind Vocal: thank you. Thank you for giving writers like me the chance to be seen. To feel proud. To speak.

And thank you, most of all, for listening.