I want to forget I really do I want to forget everything until all that’s left is your name so I can cross it out in permanent black ink - ** - like the way you did when you signed letters out to me because they meant a kiss from you but I don’t want poison kisses, no I don’t need them, I want oblivion I crave ignorance not some stupid excuse for love I want to remove the taste of you that lingers in my mouth like blood drawn from biting my inner cheeks too hard and I want to vanquish every memory ever made - ** ** ** ** - I want them crossed out until all I see are overlapping broken X’s. Do you understand? All I want is darkness.

My body is a civil war, head and heart are captains both, what graceful gore, endured when trapped in the undergrowth, this fight’s unrest does none to calm, my veins tainted with broken solider’s dreams, and the land ravaged with useless holy psalms, because of this all, I’m tearing at the seams, it doesn’t matter who wins this twisted game, for I already know my wicked fate: my soul shall burn to ash and dust upon flame, and laid to rest on hell’s ruby gates.

Do what you must but I will never stop loving you go ahead and steal my eyes away and make me blind but I will never stop seeing you behind my eyelids every night I sleep nor will that stop me from reading your emotions through braille and go ahead shut my ears and make me deaf but I will never stop hearing you nor will my ear ever forget the sound of your voice, the lullaby that lulls me to sleep and go ahead cut out my heart and make me heartless but it will never stop beating nor will it deter me from trying to save you, for you have my heart now and that’s all I wish and go ahead hate me torch all that’s left of me with the flames of your anger but I will never stop, know this now, I will bear you through my blood.

SLOTH is playing at an empty concert hall, your callused hands caressing your violin like a lover nevermore and you try to drown out the commotion of the world outside these walls with the song that plays in your ears now, gentle and melodically hypnotic but it can’t stop the onslaught of noises and you are nothing more than a tense string on the violin, quivering at the intensity at which you pull yourself together to keep from snapping, so you ignore the droning helicopters circling above, the honks of cars bustling on the nighttime strip, the talking, the laughing, the endless, nonstop percussion of the universe pushing into your mind with no chance of backing down and good god, it never stops and it wears you thin but you continue, numbing the wretched noise and you play and you play and you play -you, this tenuous string on the verge of snapping- and you believe that if you continue to play the symphony outside would actually pause and listen, become silent with awe and the entire loud orchestra from the trumpets of blaring cars, to the flute of the birds on the swaying trees, to the drums of the words coming from people’s mouths will stop and stare but when the song finally ends, you realize the world continued on without you, playing its torturous tune to no end, shrugging away your attempt at trying to block it all out, and you’re exhausted and breathing hard and you realize that this constant brutality of life is so ******* tiring, and you grow weary, bones dragged down by languor, and you’d rather fade into the dusty old background than embrace cruel fate because what’s the use in anything anymore when it’s just going to slap you right back in your face, and you stop, take a deep breath and give up and the string finally fractures, curling ever so slightly on two separate sides of the spectrum, never to be fixed because sloth doesn’t care if you played too hard and you finally snap, not when utter silence strikes and it’s left alone to lounge away and let the world pass by in blissful static.

ENVY is staring yourself down in the full body mirror, holding back the bile building in your throat as your mind plagues you with the thoughts of how you’ll never be skinny enough or pretty enough or tall enough or handsome enough or human enough and it stings -oh it stings against your sloppy, disgusting face- that you’ll never be enough because other people are so much more luckier, so much more intelligent, so much more attractive -so much more anything- than you and it gets to you, all the way underneath your skin like a wicked poison and you start to wonder, wonder why do others have it better and why you can’t have what they have because what’s so wrong with desiring what others have and then you notice that the reason why is because you are you and you are never desired for and it makes you feel worthless and furious and so awful that the poison boiling in your body starts to take its toll and you scratch at you neck until it bleeds, pinch a piece of nonexistent fat on your stomach, viciously tear at your nails so that they become ****** stumps, destroy and damage everything you hate about yourself until all that’s left is the same person you were starting at before only now you’re weak and tired and wondering why can’t others feel the way you do, why they are enough already, why they are so much more, and you’ll stare at yourself until the burning effects of your glare gives off plenty of 3rd degree burns to make you sigh, turn away, and always wonder why because envy doesn’t cure how you feel in the end, not when it’s wondering how it can become better like everyone else.

LUST is lying down on a musty mattress, looking up at the ceiling fan that continues to spin circles until the pattern is ingrained into your mind and you feel the cold of the air conditioner drift down and chill your soul into a block of ice and you yearn, you crave, for someone to come and warm you back up again because you miss the burning hot kisses making trails down the arches of your collarbones and the everlasting feel of hands rubbing their nimble, callused fingers down your entire body, sloping into your neck and your spine and each finger starting to play a soothing melody on the piano keys of your ribs and you miss how lips, wondrous creatures, traced and counted each part of your body, your skin, deeper still into your heart and your soul until the number was lost and had to be recounted again, god, you miss being truly loved and the thought is like the blast of cold air hitting you now and you remember that you can’t have the desires you pleasure and you’ll be left staring at the cracked plaster ceiling, aching for the warmth of last night to return but the space next to you is but a painful reminder of how lust creates a lonely void and makes your skin turn so, so cold until you feel nothing but the wish of being held close.

WRATH is driving away late at night, fists clenched, alcohol racing through your veins like a grand prix, thoughts raging like thunder booming outside, rain washing away the trail of fire left in your wake, flashes of lightening intermingling with hazy, muted colors of the stoplights, and you’re in your car, going faster than time on fast forward, blurring past looming trees and buildings until the landscape is nothing more than an old painting smearing from your tears and you’re driving, foot on the accelerator, pushing 60, 70, 80, until the numbers start to fade and you try to focus on the road because you have to or not you’ll be back to thinking again -even with all that whiskey burning your throat into sandpaper and all that *** blazing away the garden of Eden in your mind- and you’ll still be back to thinking, thinking about all the pain living inside your wiry skeleton and you can’t get away from it, no matter how far you drive or how fast you go or how much you drink, and you’ll slam your fists on the wheel with frustration and force 100, 110, 120, watching the rain plummet onto your windshield and you’ll cry and sob and rage -oh utter agony- and you’ll be so angry, so tortured, so enraged with yourself and the world and the awful, crooked pain that you won’t even care that you’ve spun out of control and slammed head first into a glass waterfall of ignorance and oblivion you’ve craved for because pain can’t overcome the power of wrath when it takes hold and taints your blood on the street.