i bought this gum

because is was $1.00 and it was sugarless.

 it also read “truth or dare – censored”

on the front of the package

and like a 13 year-old

i couldn’t resist seeing what it was all about.

inside the package

each piece of gum

was wrapped in a series

of fill-in-the-blank sentences

meant to be provocative in some way

with some of the words ‘censored’ out. 

i thought that i must have been the only one to buy this

because it was on sale and there was still a full shelf of it left

until i went to lunch and shared it with my friends

and one told me

that she had bought the “uncensored” version for her office.

what?  i mean #$% what?

“the only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen”

– tom smothers, 1960s