Daniel Garcia

When I set off to write Ever Hoping Yes, I knew I wanted to write about consent, but I also knew I wanted to in a very specific way. I didn’t want to use buzzwords like assault or rape or feminism or harassment or rape culture or anything of the sort. Mostly, I wanted to tell a story about the messy middle of trauma recovery, about a night where someone put themselves in my care and showed me what consent—ongoing, active, affirmative, informed, reversible, verbalized, explicit, enthusiastic, communicative consent—looks like. After all, how could I write about being treated in a dignified manner without a point of reference for it? How could I write of a “yes where yes is not the only option” without someone to show me what that looks, feels like?

ever hoping yes

sure as my own name i have
learned the work of alchemy,
for what other name exists

for magic that transmutes
pain to light / i knew waning
as a synonym for survival,

which is an easy enough
metaphor for endurance / i
recall each night beneath

a moon where i tilled my
body for another’s despite
my refusal / often, i made

yes my first choice because
it was all i was allowed / the
world has seen more wilt than

bloom from me & so i know
better now: you can’t unstitch
the story from behind a wound

all you can do is dress it / i
need not tell the story behind
the pain to know i got to the

ending of it / when i say
submission is the most powerful
act i’ve ever committed, i am

not dressing trauma in the
clothes of reclamation / i am
saying i have no further

interest in withering / what
defiance is greater than to
find spring in the middle of

winter / if there is no worse
agony than an untold story,
then allow me the one about

submission born, not from
the absence of safety, but the
presence of it / i’ve known too

many hands that took pieces
of me thinking i’d not want
them back when they were

done / i know which words are
synonymous with permission
i just never knew how to glory

in them / i asked to tell a story
& so now here it is: in one
kiss he puts himself in my

lap, all heat-seeking mouth
& legs akimbo / in another
i learn a moon is just a chunk

of planet yearning for all it
left behind / in another he is
bright & alive & brimming

with joy & he does not see me
cry / for if any part of this hurts,
it is only because he asks for

it to / how he says please & i
say yes & he says more & i say
yes & he says thank you & i

say yes & y’all / when i say
i am so damn careful with
him, i mean i see everything

i have always deserved / i
grieve the boy who was buried
in a dark room / i cheer the

boy who dug himself out / who
looked in the face of trauma
& believed he’d be there /

waiting / on the other side of
winter / because i deserve
submission without dressing

it in survival first / because i
deserve to feel safe & adored
in my submission, all small &

powerful & giving at once
because the magic isn’t that i
said yes / it’s that i kept saying

yes / when yes was not the only
option / if there be craters, they
are but open plots waiting for

spring / & isn’t that the most
magical thing: that in the face
of everything trauma could not

take from me / there i am / &
what better proof exists to show
not that i have survived, but

that there is anything but wilt to
be found here / that i am right
there / that i am right here

there i am
there i am
there i am.