Your No

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The word.

Thoughts

No. Two letters, with millions of interpretations. No. The word we chose not to hear.

No. The word we chose not to see through tears. No. The word my closed legs say to you.

No. The young age I am compared to you. No. The alcohol on my breath.

No. The clothes I wear tonight. No. The meeting behind closed doors.

No. The result of you lying. No. The reason my fear is rising.

No. The wanting to run but can’t. No. The reason I push you away.

No. The word you use as an excuse. No. The word I wish you understood.

No. The word I will teach you to hear. No. The word my children will command.

No. The word you will respect.

#respectmyno

Age 23

More Than this

When I decided I was going to submit a story, I sat down and my first thought was which story should I tell. My entire life has been littered with sexual assualt incidents. Whether it was the little girl who grabbed my ass "because I had a skirt on," those boys in high school who told me it was "all for fun," or those guys who I'd ask to walk me home from a party in college and they would, only if they could "stay the night." These moments are countless, but the moment that mostly impacted my life, and still impacts me to this day, occurred when I visited a college with some friends in high school. I met this guy who was visiting his brother; he was 27, and I was 17. The girl I was staying with drank too much, and he offered to help me take care of her. Instead, he sat me on the couch and force fed me vodka while playing a drinking game and she slept. It wasn't long before I was drunk and laying on my stomach, with him saying I needed to spread my legs. I was silent. I was scared. I couldn't move. I never told anyone what happened. I kept it to myself, and it caught up with me. I went to therapy, and it took years to work through my pain and to understand that this was not my fault. I was not the one who hit on a minor who was ten years younger than me; I did not take advantage of a girl in an unfamiliar place; I did not force anyone to drink, and, most importantly, I did not ask for this. But, I am stronger because of this moment, and I refuse to let this incident run my life. I chose more; I chose to advocate for others. I chose to listen, learn, and educate whoever I can on what "no" looks like. I've learned that "no" is often silent; it's the intoxicated "no", or I'm scared "no", or the tears run down my face "no". I am more than this, and it's time to #respectmyno.

Age 23

Lines

@_mlnovak [may also be seen on instagram]

The difference between
UNITE and UNTIE
is but one small shift
of a letter or a line
that holds so much opportunity.

And yes, it is often easier to pull everything apart, rather than bring it all together. We live in a world that is unraveling, bit by bit. Can you imagine what would happen if we all recognized that the shift, while easy to make on paper (and perhaps, even easier to make verbally), is both difficult and worthwhile?

But people like their lines,
And refuse to reconsider their boundaries,
who is allowed inside and who is kept out.

Can you imagine a world where we all pushed our boundaries and moved that line, making the shift from UNTIE to UNITE, to include others, rather than to continue to tug at the threads that could hold us all together?

Age 22

Glimpses

I try not to remember the small details of this interaction so I will write it in quick glimpses...kind of the way I choose to remember it. It's my way of avoiding the feeling of being violated all over again. I was a freshman in college hanging out with the men's basketball team. It was something my group of friends did frequently. One of the players, 'Anthony', was a guy that I had been seeing for the past few weeks. Everyone that I was with that night knew of my relationship with him...including the guy who this story is about, 'J'. The guy who I thought was a friend. The guy who had acted like a big brother to me for the few months that I had known him. The guy who was teammate to the player I was seeing at the time. We were all drinking at the team house where we would normally hangout. It was a 4 bedroom house. Two bedrooms on the first floor. Two bedrooms on the second floor. The night had really just gotten started but by the time my friends and I arrived at the house the players were already quite drunk. Everyone would congregate in one of the two bedrooms upstairs to drink, joke around, and have a good time. This one particular night though, I had left the "drinking room" to go to the bathroom in the other upstairs bedroom. I assume that 'J' saw me leave the room because when I walked out of the bathroom he was waiting outside. This bedroom was dark and empty. Everyone was still in the other room, including my friends and 'Anthony'. I could hear them laughing and having a good time as J was starting to grab me with his hands and tell me how beautiful I was. He was so unattractive, he smelled like alcohol and weed, but he was a 6'5 basketball player who I knew had anger issues. I was trying to tread lightly with how I reacted to his advances. The next glimpse that I have is that he has closed the bedroom door and locked it. I am telling him to open it and I want to go to the other room. I'm calling my best friends name and the guy I was dating but the music was so loud that they couldn't hear me. J pushes me on the bed and is kissing my neck. I'm telling him to get off of me, and that I am dating his friend. J starts to unbutton my pants. Continually trying to kiss me in other places than my neck. I am dodging every kiss as I still unsuccessfully try to push this 6'5 man off of me. The next thing that happened probably saved my piece of mind for the rest of my life. I hear my best friend walking down the hallway calling my name...looking for me. I scream as loud as I could "I'M IN HERE! HE LOCKED THE DOOR!" J gets freaked out and gets up. He says, "Don't tell 'Anthony' about this." He walks out of the room. I never did tell 'Anthony' that story.

Age 24