
Legends spread like wildfire,
gossip buzzing in your ear like a pest,
worming its way past your defenses,
burrowing faster, tearing flesh and soft tissues,
resting & loitering–
the smell so horrid, stinking foul–
smothering your head,
blinding your vision with green and red–
suffocating you with that stink, that unbearable pain.
…
I hate gossipers,
who have nothing better to do than break you down,
strip your self-confidence
and leave you as an empty husk–
decomposing in the relentless summer sun.
…
Why must you bring me down,
when I have worked so hard–
so long and hard–
to reach where I am–
which such poisonous words?