A word that’s haunted me?
That’s the question?
Curious, but all right…
Prolificity. That word stays with me
always
in strange ways.
I uncovered my art
by trial and error
looking for a way to express myself
that catered to my utter
lack of attention span.

Once I stole John Hall’s shtick
of writing quick
I found a satisfying way
to get ideas out
(Well,
one way. You should see me dance.
Creativity simply sweats out of me
– figuratively)
and since my poems had become
kind of easy to write
the name of the game became
how productive I could be.

When my father saw my second show
he said, "You repeated a lot of material"
and even though that was mostly false
it became important
to write early and often
and develop a level of prolificity
so I could avoid repetition
– or at least shut Dad up.
I don’t know how I learned the word
prolificity,
probably in some book somewhere
but I had a best guess at pronunciation
and
when I uttered it
I looked people in the eye
to see if they understood
or were ready to counter its use.
I do that with many a word
while bluffing.

Prolificity had been in my active vocabulary
for years
until I tried to verify that pronunciation
hoping to ensure once and for all
how it was expected to be saided.
I couldn’t find it at websters dot com
or dictionary dot net
and, I noticed,
autocorrect did not seem to recognize it, either.
My favorite phrase
it seemed
was a victim of my imagination.

Autocorrect kept suggesting
prolificacy
so I added that to my active vocabulary
but I felt cheated
by a world that deterred
my preferred word
from being heard.

Time’s gone on
and I’ve found myself more accepting
of language that Webster never allowed
and prolficity
has crept up among my choices.
I’ll note
that as I write it
right now
the word still triggers warnings
from Google
and whatever other filters I have in place
but then, so does prolficacy.
The world around me
will not encourage my favorites
which might raise them
even higher in my regard.

So…
prolificity.
That’s my word.
I hope it answered your question.
It didn’t?
Oh…
well.