KristyWes

The Freaking End

My friend Juan says
Saying “freaking” isn’t very
Freaking lady-like, right?

And though I know better words
To surpass and suppress “freaking” still
It slips in to pepper my speech

At first imperceptible but soon
Too much pepper is present, eclipsing
Salt and grace in my conversation.

Juan drives the point home
again, with a pseudo-expletive-filled
email so I can freaking see for myself

‘Again’ because he did it once before
(this nasty habit hard to break)
But then we lived in the same city so

He scolded with every infraction
I uttered over lunch
Or maybe it was at Starbucks

Where I get scolded often, it seems
As last week an elderly woman & her latte took
a seat next to my friend and I, then

Took us to task for saying “like”
10 times in 1 minute, according to
her un-requested & quite unappreciated tally

Followed by a lecture on young people these days
And our terrible patterns of verbal sloppiness.
One could protest seniors’ pattern of interruption

But there is no salt and grace in that either. So
I bit my freaking tongue and again resolved to
Blot the blight of “freaking” from future speech.

(My thanks to Juan, Colossians 4:6, and like, that lady at Starbucks)