Brayden, I am afraid we’re both right so there no actually about it. I live and was raised in the UK and in the UK (where English originated from obviously) the word is spelled with an s. A lot of words have been changed in ‘American English’, as it is known, to be spelled with z or without extra letters, e.g. colour and color. Both of which are technically right. The English that is spoken outside of Southern areas of England, wherein we do not elongate our ‘a’ sounds such as in ‘bath’ (Southerners are more likely to say ‘barth’ if spelled phonetically) is also often referred to as American English as it is closer to dialects spoken in the US then Southern English accents.

You may argue that because Mark Gonzales in from the US, that all the words in this poem should be spelled in the American English manner. However, as this poem was literally ’spoken word’ in terms of the access that I have to it, i.e. the YouTube video. I have dictated it as I hear it, and someone born and raised in the UK I would spell it with an s.

The English language is a ‘pluricentric’ language. This means that it’s words can be said and spelled in a number of ways that are technically still correct even though they deviate from the ‘Queen’s English’ (indeed, the Queen’s English is not an original dialect, and dialects spoken in the area where I grew up are apparently much closer to those used by Saxons and Celts). This is unlike languages such as French for instances, who have an actual centre (center!) for language that dictates that if you do not say or spell a French word a certain way it is just WRONG.

Well. That’s about as detailed a response as I have ever written to such a short comment, and I bet you weren’t expecting it, but it was no trouble for me to impart this knowledge and I quite enjoyed showing that we are both right.

All the best.

G.