Thou Shalt not kill

My Viper’s tongue was the weapon

I used it a lot that first day

I told them her husband was cheating

I saw he was up to foul play

I swore them all to secrecy

Made them promise not to tell

I hurried away with my gossip

And rang the next neighbor’s bell

I had barely sat down for coffee

Eager to deliver my news

When with a smug and all knowing grin

She told me that man had ignited a fuse

Oh girl, ain’t you heard what happened?

She caught him at home in their bed

Doing all sorts of things with that slut

She pulled the trigger and the shot pierced his head

Now that was the wrong information?

I‘d never heard that before

He was cheating, I‘d seen it all right

Had he not kissed the pig at her door?

I had seen his look of tenderness

As he kissed the woman that night

I couldn’t wait to tell everyone what I’d witnessed

And bring all his sins to the light

My next door neighbor should hear this

She says gossip is the spreading of lies

She doesn’t know her best friends very well

Oh she will be very surprised

My neighbor was waiting at my house

With a couple of candles in hand

“Come let us start a prayer vigil

There’s so much I don’t understand “

We walked to the new house of death

I had nothing to say on the way

She told me the story, the true one

Saying between us the story must stay

Seems the woman he had driven home

Turned out to be his old Aunt

I had corrupted an innocent scene

And was too cowardly to recant

She explained that they’d heard the false gossip

His wife accepted and believed all she heard

He’d cheated before and promised to change

But apparently had not kept his word

She aimed his service revolver

As he pleaded for her to be sane

This poor creature was out of control

She shot him to end all her pain

She didn’t think of the kids or their marriage

Or of the love in their beautiful house

All she thought was that he was cheating again

A second time betrayed by her spouse

I listened in horror as she told me

Knowing I had first started the lie

She could be sure I’d keep these facts between us

Because of me a man died

It was I who committed this murder

With every careless word that I said

I destroyed a family’s life with my tongue

With the vicious rumor I spread

C.M. Lestrade©March 06,2010