On January 18, 2015, at Stanford University, Brock Turner, a nineteen-year-old student, sexually assaulted Chanel Miller while she was unconscious. On September 2, 2016, Turner was released after three months for good behavior – only half his original sentence.

The original scene of the crime is now a garden.

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If we could landscape the horrors
and build walls of stone (to call them beautiful),
we would.
But remember –
even without these gardens planted,
you can upend our worlds.

There are names we never speak in our households
like giving Satan a title (a crown) –
James, perhaps,
or
Geoffrey, maybe.
The boys with ruddy skin & sharp teeth,
the boys with trust funds and drinking problems.

The girls we worry about are the ones
who think “no” isn’t a reason
or that “stop” isn’t a complete thought.

The ones who break us are the ones who teach us
rejection doesn’t matter —

nothing matters.

Boys aren’t always just boys.
Boys can be feral creatures:
unforgiving with dried blood
underneath their crescent moon nails.

Boys like Nathaniel and Brock and Christopher.

(The boys you thought were beautiful
are the ones who disrobed you
with their lust & savagely attacked your beauty
with no regard for how you crafted your stars
or lingered over your constellations.)

Manipulate me,
but I will always say your name.

I will not be quieted
because like the author warned me,
the girls who swallow their teeth
are the ones who get eaten.

So, I will not get roped into settling for
the garden of Eden and blamed for taking a bite
of the fruit of knowledge.

I will not be silenced.
I will not be vanquished.
I will scream.

Isabelle Palerma

Our voices will be heard.

We will not be silenced.