Gossip, gossip

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?