The Seven Deadly Sins
Pride has her place in my head, but like all things, too much of her makes me sick. She can be intoxicating, making me drunk on her power as she fills me with her amber, my psyche tainted with her might. She can be overwhelming, smothering me with her strength as she controls me from the inside and using me as a battering ram. But I know her secret, the reality that makes her shake and shudder with fear. She is incredibly weak; her powers are nothing if not pathetic. Sure, she can make me feel like a god, but when you see her for what she truly is, her abilities are feeble in comparison to my own abilities. Pride has her place within me, but she cannot control me despite her promise of indomitability.
Envy is more subtle than Pride, slipping between the cracks in my smile and infecting me from the back of my throat. He knows he is small and doesn’t cower from it, instead he uses his trivial size to sneak and skulk in my mind, poking and prodding the dark corners of my consciousness. He pollutes the darkness within me allowing his toxic fumes to spill into my lungs, suffocating me from the depth of my breath. I know his stench, the way it stings the corners of my eyes and tastes like poison making me gag. He is easy to dispose of, vaulting him from the recesses of my chest with a single hearty cough, but he lingers, waiting for his moment to slither inside once again, the flicker of his acid green tail in his wake.
Lust is not a friend of mine. She has never cradled my cheek, kissed me tenderly, nor left me raw. I barely know her name, but I’ve seen what she’s done to others with her pretty words sweet as honey like a siren song as she lures other to ruin. Her teeth are sharp, leaving a bloody and vicious mark upon her victims’ skin before she disappears, her laughter ringing behind her as she leaves them to deal with the fall out of her love bite. Her pretty words and tempting aura never worked on me, despite her best efforts; she could never capture me in her trap.
Greed is like a fog, his aroma sickening and claustrophobic in nature as he slinks into the room, taking control of my body like a nerve-toxin as he governs my every move, making me believe his actions are of my own decision. His tainted power makes my tongue loll hungrily and my eyes roll back in my head as he controls my every move, the strength of his persuasion drugging me like a handsome perfume. His grip is strong, but not as strong as me as I claw my way back to myself. I rip him from my mind and smother him brutally, my nails digging deep into his aura as he dissipates like a ghost. I hiss that he will never control me again, and we both know it’s a lie.
Like her sister, Gluttony and I were never close. She knew I couldn’t be tempted by her promises of heaven and settled instead for a taste of hell. She filled me with the whims of a queen, urging me to turn my nose at the slightest sense of disgust, and forcing me to turn away from many meals. Instead of filling me up she emptied me out, leaving me to shake and shudder; long nights would pass as my stomach grumbled hungrily. As a child I would wish to carve my tongue from my mouth if it would change my distaste for her. But I knew, deep down, that my tongue was not the problem and instead it was the seed that she had planted in my belly, its strength growing with each year. Instead, I learned to live with it, feeding the tree the foods it deems acceptable and challenging it when I have the strength to fight.
Sloth was the deadliest of the siblings, and the one who had been underestimated the most, for Death was their closest friend, and all the people Sloth seduced would be brought to death’s door begging for peace. Sloth was able to wheedle their way inside me, hollowing me from the inside out and carving my heart into slivers of its original shape. With each slice, Sloth’s claws would dig deeper into me, allowing me to be tugged closer to death. The sound of Sloth’s sharp knife was like nails on a chalkboard as they slashed the iron wires that anchored me to the ones I love. The slivers of my heart became lost in the emptiness of my chest, my fragile and frail figure laying sickly and pale at death’s door; where sloth promised pain, Death promised peace, and all I had to do was knock on the ivory wood.
Wrath is unlike his siblings for he is softer and quieter than the others, smaller by far and dangerously more cunning. He doesn’t hide behind pretty words like his sister Lust, nor does he drain his victims like his sibling Sloth. No, Wrath bides his time, growing more powerful with each tick of the clock as he softly murmurs in my ear, his words persuading me towards anger that feels carnally righteous. He aches in my bones and turns my skin to iron, making my words drip with molten fire as they seep from my sizzling mouth. He is hard to deter when he cradles my shattered ribs ever so gently, fusing my splintered heart back together with delicate but skilled fingers, all the while summoning the warmth of hellfire to heat my bed when it has been cold for so long. His touch is always kind, filling me like no one ever could.