It is born of idle gossip,
where it starts, well, no one knows.
But it spreads like wildfire,
and each day it grows and grows.
Given life through nasty rhetoric,
and much dissatisfaction.
A grain of truth, with outright lies,
each moment, gaining traction.
Passed around one to another,
it can cause fear or elation.
In this age of social media,
it spreads fast, through the nation.
Some believe it, others don't,
based on gullibility.
It lives for who can tell how long,
the cost of it is free.
But it causes consternation,
as it spreads like an infection.
Where it leads to, no one knows,
you cannot guess its direction.
It travels near and far away,
its movement doesn't stop
Just as long as people feed it,
it will live and never drop.
But comes the day when it dies out,
when whene'er, people stop caring.
It disappears like smoke in wind,
it dies from lack of sharing.
A rumor starts, and true or not,
the cycle it goes through
can lead to violence, sadness, fear,
it's just what rumors do.
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