For Those Who Come After
A poem about waiving anonymity, injustice and those who come after
By Jade Blue
A poem by Jade Blue on her decision to waive her legal right to anonymity after sexual violence - confronting the shame and stigma still attached to being a ‘victim’, the anger of navigating a failing justice system, and her determination to push for change for every woman and girl who comes after.
For Those Who Come After
I chose to be named.
To give up the anonymity
the law had given me.
Because victim is not a dirty word.
And the shame was never mine.
But the anger is.
At every hurdle.
Every barrier.
Every closed door.
At a system that can ask
the already wounded to fight again.
To chase answers.
Challenge decisions.
Demand explanations. Refuse to be dismissed.
As though surviving the violence
wasn't already enough.
So I refused to disappear quietly.
Not for recognition.
Not because a name
can undo what happened.
But because I could not let
failure be the final word.
This is for every woman and girl who comes after.
We should not have to beg
to be taken seriously.
We should not have to become experts in the systems that fail us.
We should not have to fight
until there is nothing left in us.
And we should not have to scream
before somebody finally listens.
