three letter word
By Star Matis
PROMPT — Despite ...
Despite it being allegedly legal now, we still don’t say it. We allude to it, we hint, we tease and flirt with the idea of it.
“Is she… you know? Yeah, you know. Is she, like… I dunno, playing for the same team? You know what I mean, is she?” We add a little hand-flip gesture into the soup of words just spilt.
There’s a word we mean. A three letter word that shouldn’t be as restricted as we make it feel.
“Does she listen to Girl In Red? Is she, like, wuh-luh-wuh? Does she have a carabiner? Does she, you know, U-haul? Haha. You know.” We bat our eyelashes, smirk knowingly, tilt our heads as if looking down on whoever dares to misunderstand.
We should just say it. It isn’t a dirty word.
“Is she a lipstick? A chapstick? A stone? If she’s, you know. One of those.” We laugh, we check our phones. We open the news app.
I see the latest restriction on that three letter word.
I should be able to say it. I shouldn’t be so afraid to ask.
A teacher lost her job in another state for saying it. She lived only a few hours away, a day trip from my restrained tongue to her newly repressed life.
I should say it.
“Are you a le-dollar-sign-bean?”
“Do you like Chappell Roan?”
“Do you wear flannel?”
Are we a group of stereotypes? Are we a three letter word considered more dangerous than an assault rifle?
Are we lovers? Friends?
You know?
Star Matis is a poet, horror writer, and college student at Loyola University of Maryland. They are passionate about fiction with darker themes of morality and mortality, as well as personal nonfiction and poetry. Star also volunteers at a local goat farm outside of classes. They write from Towson, Maryland.
