Seven Sins: Envy
The sixth sin
Jealousy. Spite. Resentment. Longing. Malice.
Roar - Maisie Archer
what you possess is my desire
unrest seeps black through every pore
delicious dreams of discontent
the emptiness inside me roars
a loathing ache pricks like a briar
gut-churning burn, heart sore at war
dark space within a bright torment
the emptiness inside me roars
deficiencies I own so dire
envy devours this heated gore
we once were friends, now I resent
the emptiness inside me roars
all within you that I admire
my wasted want, demand for more
dismiss those bonds, without consent
the emptiness inside me roars
© Maisie Archer 2025
Envy In Ink - Heather Patton / The Verdant Butterfly
The page never sounds right. Sentences limp, bloated with effort, while their words God, their words glide like glass knives across silk. Elegant. Effortless. Mine? Sweat-stained. Begging to be seen. And once, a line came smooth. Sharp. Clean. It sang like it meant something. For a moment, it was beautiful. Then came the echo. A rhythm too close, a phrase too familiar the scent of them in it. And suddenly it reeked. The pen slashed through it before thought could stop the hand. Can’t steal what you never meant to. Can’t keep what never felt like yours. Cross it out. Try again. Still wrong. Try harder. Still... them. Still not enough. Their poems win awards. Mine whisper from trash bins. Every stanza feels like dressing in rags to attend a formal event. Fingers cramp from mimicry. Tongue goes numb from biting it. Cross it out. Rip the page. Tear the draft. Bleed the font dry. If it’s all wrong, maybe it’s the hand. Yes. The hand. Snap the pencil fingers. Ink won’t spill if the wrists are broken. Maybe then they’ll stop shaking with want. The mirror in the study cracks. Not from pressure from recognition. This isn’t a writer. This is a wound that learned to spell. Start with the voice pull it out. Still too loud. Then the throat gag it with pages. Too soft. Then the eyes. Too jealous. Can’t unsee the brilliance that isn’t yours. At last, when nothing is left but gnawed stumps and breathless envy, the story writes itself: "They were better. I was hungry." And hunger, it seems, was the only thing ever worth writing.
© Heather Patton (The Verdant Butterfly) 2025
The Man Who Waters the Roses - Andy Edge
He watches. Through venetian blinds. Fingers part dusty slats.
The neighbor's garden flourishes with breathtaking vibrancy. Roses climbing trellises, hydrangeas nodding heavy heads toward the earth. Impeccable. Unlike his own withered patch of yellowed grass and empty ceramic pots.
His fingers trace a stranger's face
in mirrors haunted by disgrace.
While across the fence, joy's warm glow,
from fuller lips and shoulders flow
all the touches he will never know.
Night falls. He slips between sheets cold as autumn lakes at midnight. Dreams of cutting those flowers, one by one. Dreams of wearing another man’s skin. Of stretching the human husk across his own skeletal frame until it molds to his bones. In his dreams, he becomes the other. In his dreams, he knows true happiness.
T h e r a v e n o u s y e a r n i n g f l o w s t h r o u g h h i s v e i n s
as
Morning light filters through blinds he never closed. His neighbor waters those damned flowers, bare feet dancing across dewy grass. Skin golden under sunrise. Hair tumbling loose. He is exquisite. He is ravishing.
I could drink your happiness so sweet,
swallow it whole, a stolen treat.
Press my mouth against your throat so fair,
breathe in your essence, beyond compare,
until your life becomes my air.
The memory burned bright. A summer barbecue, introductory handshakes. The neighbor's palm against his, so warm, firm, lingering a moment too long. He is not grotesque enough to repel, not alluring enough to captivate. He is invisible. Yet beneath the neighbor's persistent gaze, he became SEEN.
The first seed of desire took root in fertile soil.
His collection grows. Small things. Insignificant treasures. A wristband lost to the wind. A forgotten wine glass on the deck at night, lip prints smeared across the rim. A comb with strands still tangled in teeth. Nothing missed. Nothing noticed.
H e b u i l d s a l t a r s i n s e c r e t d r a w e r s
as
The photographs multiply. Blond head tossed back in laughter, dazzling teeth, sumptuous lips, elegant everything. Captured through blinds, over fences, across restaurant tables. The camera lens brings him closer. Makes him almost real enough to touch. He is magnificent.
Under moonlight I crawl with silent pace,
between shadows on your lawn, leaving no trace.
Press my ear to cool glass with bated breath,
imagine our mingled sighs, intimate as death,
how warm your sheets must be, your body near,
the touch of your lips is all I revere.
The kitchen window offers an unobstructed view. His neighbor shirtless, moonlight caressing naked skin. His pulse quickens. His pleasure builds and crests, his neighbor's name a whispered prayer against the night.
as
Hunger sharpens into clawed devotion, bleeding him from within. It scrapes him vacant. Carves deeper caverns where satisfaction never comes. He imagines himself becoming the void. A black hole consuming everything around it, never filled.
The lock picks gleam in his slender hands. He practices. Until he hears the
Click.
His neighbor sleeps deep. Curtains open to night air. Sheets tangled around beauteous bare limbs. He moves through the house like phantom mist, fingers brushing surfaces, collecting textures, memories, spirit.
I want the curve of your smile, so divine,
the depth of your laugh, resonant as wine.
I want your mother’s embrace, warm and sweet,
Your lover’s gentle hands, my skin to meet.
I want everything that makes you shine,
I want you to be only mine.
He hovers above the bed, transfixed. The rise and fall beneath the crisp cotton holds him captive, a rhythmic tide of life. He envisions himself dissolving into the sleeping form, becoming the lungs drawing sweet oxygen from darkness, the steadfast heart pumping crimson life through hidden rivers, the mysterious mind adrift in oceans of dreams beyond reach.
The knife shines s i l v e r in the moonlight.
The bedroom air carries your scent,
cologne and sleep, intimately blent.
I trace the path your body's made
on sheets where countless dreams have played,
imagining myself instead,
the rightful owner of this bed.
“I just want,” he whispers, “to know how it feels.”
To be loved,
to be whole,
to be you,
instead of me.
The blade descends, not toward flesh, but toward golden hair spread across pillows. Just one lock. A keepsake. Something to hold when the hunger grows too fierce.
But eyes open. Bodies collide. Glass breaks.
E n d l e s s b l o o d
Blood darkens to black in the moonlit room. It spreads across white carpet like spilled ink. He cannot tell whose veins have opened. Whose life drains away. They merge together, an intimate surrender, bound together in death's dark sacrament. A final communion.
as
Dawn breaks. Only one remains.
He waters the roses, bare feet dancing across dewy grass.
© Andy Edge 2025
The Taking - Khrystyna Catalina
Stiletto heels on the tile floor of the Chicago Hilton lobby call every eye and drooling mouth to satin painted skin. I may take up a new hobby I'll steal her and break her and demand to know I'll dwell within her vestibule a silent mask of loving hatred comb her hair perhaps too hard and collect her nuances I plan relentlessly to gently pet her Chanel chiffon dresses while she showers or orders room service or better yet I'll sit and wait at the edge of her bed and glower while she tickles maroon lipstick over a Juvéderm mouth. A ghost, I'll learn her every gesture a nothing within her world of everything keep believing it Trailing behind, a gentle kitten attentive and slinking my teeth tucked away for when we are alone again.... she is not strong or whole without the gaze of many and my shuttered breaths grow heavy as I enact the change I have it in my hands. I slip inside her shimmering fate leave her with my nothing I have finally become. I am finally awake.
© Khrystyna Catalina 2025
‘E’ is for Envy - Sue Banerji
An enormity of your wishes for success Number of big things And small things And Things in the closet That don’t fit in your heart Any more Extraordinaire Wings Of duality And ease of evocation of equality Helps you own more All born out of envy ‘N’ is for Nothingness Ridiculed Rejected Retired Before even hired Nothing matters In gusty winds A fistful of dust lonely trust Are lost Nobody reports Them missing Nothing matters ‘V’ is for volume Of visions That grows Unidirectional Demanding Velocity, nutrition, and sunlight All for itself Voluptuous vernacular dreams Visualize voices Via Voltaire’s volatile, virtuous philosophy: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” ‘Y’ is for A yoke unable to harness Yoga, Yin, and yang And fragrant flowers of Yulan and Ylang Ylang Bitter heart And a resentful mind An obsessive combo That yearns for what others possess Youthfulness in old And wisdom in youth Remains a mouthful of wish Envy is poisonous ivy Itching never stops Until the skin is skinned alive. Share
© Sue Banerji 2025
Saboteur - Edward Swafford
All it takes is some sheer, low-cut skirt slinking
Stigmatizing saffron-hued heels cLiCkiNg on
Curtsy ground and courting
Stares from steel-blue eyes, pyretic and VIVID
It’s acuity (don’t panic)
Intent shape-shifts a misshapen focal inquisition
Shaping pheromonic sloped lenses, a guise?
Her perfume always gets them high, so how ↓
Low
Does
She
Go?
Backward-step sidewalks curb this bullish,
Biological divide between peripheral love and
Passé fling “just lust” fantasy faux pas
Friend or foe?
Nor yes, is this a luxe hide-and-heat-seeking
Gamut of catch cry, yoke, and optical muscle?
COY ILLUSIONS | SNOISULLI YOC
Feminine shadows
Seldom stalk ala fixation silhouettes, he bobs
And weaves from woven discipled demagogue
Playbooks, rightly or wrongly
A writ!
Right on cue, her heart ticks to his immediate
THRUMMING of the bass from safety bubbles
Afar distances itself from her caught-at-no-fault
“Cute” destitute transparency
Once.
Twice.
Thrice.
Threnodic strides, she’s FAST on her feet, yet
The dead know no sanctuary, and he knew this
Fact from first sight.
HAIKU:
Distemper figure
Eyes trap the susceptible
Vanishing decry
© Edward Swafford 2025 - Originally published in Fourth Wave.Our previous sinners…
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Stellar job, y'all!!!!
As I was combing through for a proofread, I realized how bloody strong this assemblage of writers is. Props to each and every ONE of you.
This is beyond brilliant. I should maybe feel a tinge of envy? But I'm just happy.