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consent.

My first kiss was sprung upon me
by my best friend (at the time) …
No brief peck, but an awkward, slimy slug

(his tongue slipped between my lips)

I was shocked (disgusted?)
but he had turned and left
and the bell would ring
before I had time to process it.

Before I had time to say “no.”

Anyway.

Hadn’t I been taught
that it was

ROMANTIC™

Wasn’t he cute?

(too cute for me)

Didn’t I love
how his eyes sparkled?

(what color even were they?)

So it was okay. I guess.

I lost my virginity to someone else,

(to someone else’s boyfriend)

the start of a fast and broken affair
that I regretted before it even began.

and though I am now fifteen years older
and fifteen years wiser (ha)
I want to believe
that if he had asked, at some point,

before that first touch

before that first kiss

before pulling my pants down

pushing my underwear aside

and awkwardly shoving in …

(didn’t he know how it hurt?
didn't I whimper?
wasn’t there
blood?)

Maybe
if he had just asked

“can I?”

without the weight of his muscled arms
pressing into me

(the weight of his affair
hanging over me)

without the empty promise
of a secret love, falsely requited

(I was betraying her too)

without the awkward pain
of youthful unreadiness

(is anyone ever really ready? I was older than him anyway)...

Perhaps
if he had just offered me
a moment (an option)

then maybe my frozen indifference

(my moral conflict)

could have expressed itself

as “no”
or “this isn’t right”
“I don’t think…”
or even,
“do you have
a condom?”

and if I was too naïve

infatuated
manipulated?
aroused

at the time to say no,

then at least I
would have made
the choice.