I was honoured and humbled to be asked to collaborate with these amazing voices. To date, this is one of my favourite collaborations.

The Seven Deadly Sins as envisioned by Amy Johnson:

LUST

Your poetry, my undoing;
For its flesh
Begged me
To taste it,
Savour it,
Become one with it;
I sinned beautifully;
Forever perjured, by your words..

© Darrielle Cresswell

GLUTTONY

I have a confession to make my
love….it’s never going to be
enough….this necessity to
overindulge….overwhelming
desire to devour….everything that
is you….I’ll never be satiated….no
longer eating to live….but living
to consume.

© Jason King

SLOTH

With suicidal gestures slicing
through her nerves
Stillness taunting the acid tongue
to blow
She will never feel the calmness
of gentle rain
In her veins
On her skin
Is the agony of dancing on open
wounds
Spinning and tortured twirling
over the edge
The chaos of the dark suffocates
the soft
Replacing it with delusions
whispering sweet destruction

© Amy Johnson

GREED

I come in waves of want, crashing against you,
pounding everything you stood for,
and seeping into your soul.
I light the flames of your desires and
stoke them to hellfire, and delight
in the seared flesh of everyone you swallow
to extinguish my blaze.
Our scalding pit rank with excess
will never be enough to satiate, and our burning
hunger consumes each other.

© Nicole Lyons

ENVY

I have no right to question your life
when it is me who is tied to another,
but every moment that plays before me
in a slow motion picture slideshow
that I’m not part of, my eyes turn green
and my heart becomes a broken grenade
filled with the ruffled feathers of wings
that never had a chance to fly to you.

© Stephanie Bennett-Henry

WRATH

A cold wind howls
Where we used to stand
Two fires burning bridges
We built with one hand
A quick and painless death
Is too merciful for your crime
You will suffer without my love
You will regret without my time
You will feel my wrath
In the nothingness between us

© Matthew D. Eayre

PRIDE

The hammer had fallen
Smashing my future into
unrecognizable pieces
Where had the love gone
How could the joy I felt
Be consumed by this endless pit
My own heart had forsaken me
Alone and afraid I am left to face the world
Just me and my foolish pride

© Jay Long