What would you do
If I asked you to stop saying
Just one word?
One.
Would you look at me and laugh?
Would you spit the word at me?
Or maybe you’d say that old adage
About sticks and stones.
What is I said that this word
Just this one
Or maybe a few
Out of our vast vocabulary
Hurt?
Would you spit again?
Would you tell me I’m weak?
Would you tell me words
Are just words?
Would you ignore how words build vast empires
And in the same breath, blow them down?
Would you ignore how words create as much
As they destroy?
Would you ignore my pain
My heart
My life
For one word?
Words are fickle.
Words are many
But if you ask to remove one
Suddenly their world is undone.
That word becomes a movement
It becomes a sentiment
It changes and shifts
As the meaning apparently does
Fortresses are built around this
One word
Defenses erected
Motes filled and trenches dug
But me?
I’m left bare
Exposed
Raw
While you defend that one word
With your whole being
You ignore the fact that you’ve left me
Open
That one word becomes more
More important
Than me
For one word?
You’d rather protect that word
An idea
A breath
Than me.
That word suddenly gets a pedestal
And golden laurels
While I get rags
And your venom
But, you didn’t mean it that way
It’s just one word
Right?
If so…
Then why are you defending?
In this world of words
Where empires gather and fall around them
Why that one?
Love. You’d not defend
Friendship, as clearly shown.
Kindness? You left it outside
Your erected and chained gates.
Along with me
Is it worth it?
For just
One word?
In return
I offer one more word
Another word, loaded with power
If words mean more than me
Mean more than who I am
Who we are
What we’ve done
Where we’ve been
Then I offer you one more word
A word that destroys lives
Just as the one you defend
Goodbye
GenderTerror 