Bits and Pieces

Rumor Has It

Words can hurt.

Power comes with simple speech.

It's all in the way you say something.

All in the words you use.

Nobody likes it when a person looks to the outside

Before they look on the inside.

Feelings are hurt everyday.

When people say "It doesn't matter,"

They are wrong.

So wrong.

People will say things to make someone stop feeling hurt,

Things like stop worrying.

Who cares?

But the comments of classmates spread like wildfire

Among a forest of dead branches and dried out leaves.

Rumors rush around schools

And nourish those with a thirst of gossip.

Influenza.

Cholera.

Pneumonia.

Talking behind someone's back is like a disease

That gets everyone infected.

Though you may not be the first to receive it,

And you might not fall ill in the very beginning,

It comes to get you.

When someone is spreading a rumor,

You have to nip it in the bud

So it doesn't get overgrown.

Rumors can go crazy.

They fill people up with nastiness

And leave them rooting against the common enemy:

The underdog.

The ones who can't fend for themselves.

The ones who have never had the school at their feet,

Begging to be on their side.

It's often the ones like these that get attacked,

Bombarded with the names and rumors

That won't stop until they find a new target.

And nobody wants to be the target.

People will mask who they are

Just so that they prevent the rumors from happening,

So that they are not the one people point their hatred to.

But people hide behind their fake masks, ugly masks,

And decide to go along with the rumors.

Hide behind another person's fault

And attack the victim with vicious comments,

The perfect army when trying to thrive

Before others can turn around and go for them.

They pick on others to stop worrying about themselves.

But they don't know how much they are hurting others by doing so.

Getting a rumor spread about you is not a pleasant thing.

It's actually quite the opposite.

You feel crushed.

Hurt.

Not wanting to show your face anywhere again

Though it's not an option.

It's unnerving how a rumor starts.

It's the simple, steady, burning flame of a match

Struck against slick gasoline,

Bursting into flames at the first contact.

It's the devious glint in the eyes of just one person

Seeking out his or her target

As the afraid population follows in those long-lasting footsteps.

Why is there hatred when there could be love?

Do all rumor-spreaders start out with the intention of hurting someone?

Can something so very drastic get out of hand so easily?

The spread of rumors is a rising problem in schools today.

If someone starts a rumor,

Don't pass it on,

And try to help.

If you start a rumor, place yourself in their shoes.

Not only will passing on a rumor make the target feel terrible,

But you'll make yourself feel terrible too.

The words you say can only go so far,

But the words you say can make deep impacts.

Having a rumor spread about you

Is like pouring salt into a wound

That you didn't know you had.

Somewhere along the way to here,

You were hurt,

Even if it was just a little cut.

To have people spread things about you,

Things that are often not even true,

Just infects that cut and makes it worse.

It leaves the kind of impact

That you don't want to have experienced.

Rumors can stay with people for their whole lives,

Especially if the torments just keep coming.

It's not only the words that you say that hurt people,

It's that you said them in the first place.

Think before you act,

And don't make a negative impact on people with rumors,

'Cause those kinds of impacts cut deep.