SHOUT(28)

and their families and everyone who loved them the ribbons shouted that they were not alone the ribbons announced that they were seen the ribbons demonstrated that they were heard the ribbons signaled revolution more people tied ribbons to the fences until all you could see were the colors, not the iron rusting underneath the church cut them off, but by morning the fences were again beribboned the church cut them off

the people put them back

then the ribbons spread to other cities, other churches, other schools across Australia and to other countries all the way to the Vatican

in Ballarat those stubborn flags of hope created Loud Fence; the term refers to persistently, relentlessly reminding victims of sexual violence

that they are important and supported and good when I was in elementary school and my friends walked

down to the church for their Wednesday lessons I had to memorize poetry for a teacher I chose “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost about neighbors and the work of repairing stone walls, of walling in and walling out the famous line still opens itself in my head, from time to time reminding that “good fences make good neighbors”

in Ballarat,

good neighbors make loud fences the language of love made visible





feralmoans




your brain, young thing shadow-dancing with lightning swimming, brimming with yearn, churn and the sex! woo-boy! and hungers you can’t name yet, and crayon smells, spells compelling, carouseling under-skin earthquakes

altering your landscapes eyesight, earhear changing every minute, dear too close, too far, unplowed crowd drowning, downing, drawn to warm bodies like

a moth

to a flame

be careful

out there,

k?





emerging




wet-winged butterflies wobbly antennae, shaky knees their faces still lined with chrysalis wrinkles finally at liberty

straining to take flight while terrified kings reigning suspicious witness the butterflies’

metamorphosis

effecting change

from elementary stasis to fluttering chaos, launching in the dawn’s early fight their unrestrained campaign to remove politicians from their paper palaces bought and paid for, the sad, recoiling kings freak

because the otherworldly magic available to the newly hatched is boundless and unbreakable which is why the powerful won’t let the young vote But the kids know how to use matches





two opposites of rape




   To have sex

   is human.

   To make love,

   Divine.





yes, please




“yes”

sounds like heaven falling from the sky yes smells like hot, hot sweet apple pie

yes dances hip to hip, eye to eye sober, yes

demands very sober, cuz yes shares this body touch me

with permission only, yes—signed, sealed deliverance from evil, no sin to be tempted, but only with yes in the sheets yes in the backseat, yes to a condom yes, please go down on me until yes!

because yes is not swipe right, yes is hello I want to get to know you because maybe we might yes, but the dance comes first, yes the interplay of hey, flirt, hey, the pounding heart of questioning yeses and nos, let’s go slow

revolyestionary notion that behold, this body and soul that yes welcomes yes embraces yes the taste of someone who has proven worthy

of your yes

is worth the questing, slow beckoning interrogating, interesting, conversating adventuring yes is ongoing yes enthusiastic

yes informed

yes free-given

yes the truest test of sex

the consent of yes is necessary





Ultima Thule




I speak at book festivals to thousands of teens

and hundreds of brilliant teachers who clutch 32-ounce cups of coffee with extra shots of espresso and patience I tell my stories, burning hot and angry gentle some truths so the kids can hear them drop consent bombs they can’t avoid laugh about the dumb things I’ve done so they can laugh, too

Over three days, I sign countless books and listen as girls speak

up about being raped

or molested or shared

or any of the varieties

of sexual violence visited upon the young and wordless Greenland is a dependency of Denmark, if you travel to the far north of Greenland then a little farther still you might find the mythic land of Ultima Thule home to the wind, ice, and lichen old as time Ultima Thule, my refuge for when the world gets too real like when a twelve-year-old tells me about Mommy’s boyfriend

and the things he made her do at night

when Mommy worked the late shift after she wipes her tears on my shoulder and promises to write

and walks back to her teacher I whisper

Ultima Thule

empty and cold and holding a place for me for cryotherapy, for vacuum-sealing myself in the ice, just for a little while imagining all the layers of clothes I’d wear on Ultima Thule

the benign joy of studying polar bear songs or renegade glaciers

dreaming of the aurora borealis at the top of the world

and how I could make room

on Ultima Thule for anyone else who just needs a space safe enough to breathe, for a little while like this girl