“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

A comedian heretofore respected used that word to preface
The lack of truth in the face to face encounters
At sports events
By the second reference I pitched the halfway read book
In the trash
Good riddance for it
You know how ‘we’ get when they use
That word

You know how we get when ‘we’ use
That word
Baby
Child
That word
We were fed on
That word like soul food and
$5.00 haircuts
Not forgetting to get around that kitchen
Even if you got other blood in you

A beloved novelist
Recently dearly departed
Explained it in terms of fireworks
In an innocent June childhood
I blinked shook it off
continued reading his brilliance

Later that week, a dear friend
Ace bon heart
Confessed her father called her
that word
I gently corrected her
With some family narration
How that word
has used it’s ‘best before’ date