Gossip and Rumors (poem)

It's almost as though God talked
to me through your friends
about your life in detail.
How I laughed! If only
they knew what I had witnessed!

How close to the truth
could friends be without being
there is beyond me!

When I came home to tell you,
you called it gossip & mdash;
it was like the devil talked
through you, and darkness
had fallen upon your mind.

Still, when we cuddled
I heard you talk in your sleep:
"Gossip and rumors!
Keep away from me right now!
Oh God! I am embarrassed!"

So I held you close and sighed,
"Me meeting your friends,
why are you so mortified?"
And you replied, "Oh,
they are sunny-day people!"

"They aren't rainy-day people
like you," she told me.
So I hugged her and kissed her!
The next morning dawned,
and you said to me again:

"They aren't rainy-day people
like you, as you know!
Those people who you had met
only claimed to be
friends of mine to spread gossip!"

"So the rumours' false?"
I asked, looking at her closely.
"Mostly," you replied.
"Couldn't you tell they were lies?"
I hadn't noticed at all.

If gossips spread lies as truth,
and truth as lies, then
only rumors would have
the currency of
truth to make the wise rich.

Yet truth telling leaves
one transparent to us all,
while a liar is
opaque, and lost to friendship,
except to other liars.

As gossips or rumour
mongers love to say,
"White lies are alway useful
for extracting truth
for us to spin around."

When once the truth is
stretched much too far for comfort,
it snaps suddenly,
and smacks between the eye
until you stretch it again.

Gossip and rumours
are cultivated by white lies,
only to become
"the official story"
and yours, conspiracy theory.

So, be prepared to
do some truth-telling before
a gossip sniffing
for rumours to morph into
stories to fan the flames.