I want to say it’s lust.

Lust is so sexy, at least.

And pride?

It implies something

You can brag about.

Sloth sounds very restful

And wrath at least is power.

And greedy, wow, to be a pig

Just for one day...

Gorging yourself seems so cool

But I diet. My rare act of control.

I guess it is envy.

In Chinese, Envy translates

As “Eating vinegar”

I do too much of that,

Though I don’t know:

Am I sour because I envy

Or was I sour, and the envy

Came forth? I do not know.

I see that plate you have

And drool.

I see your wealth

And stare

But mostly,

I see you, as a person

And know how far

I have to go

Yet never to reach.

Born of grunge and metal's mirth

Beneath the pouring rain,

Swarmed Seattle; legend's birth

Incorporating pain.

Troubled childhood, feeling down

Within depression's clutch,

Chris Cornell, against a frown,

Ensnared a hopeful touch.

Sparking much debate in school,

Religion took a fall,

Hence removed from off the spool

As Chris had questioned all.

Drugs escaped into his mind

And solo seemed the path

He would walk as albeit blind,

Until musician's math

Forged a bond as guitars strummed

And drums in pounding beat

Measured in the way he hummed-

A symphony complete.

Gardens made of sound arrived;

The friendship formed a band.

Intercession, songs survived

And guided Chris's hand.

Rusty cages seemed outshined

And more so, I suppose.

Moving melodies defined

A Jesus Christ like pose.

Spoonman sung in deepest rays-

A black hole sun's delight.

Fell on darkened, blackest days

The way he lived in night.

Pretty noose foreshadowed doom;

A burden in the palm.

Blowing up the outside gloom,

The rhinosaur brought balm.

Black rain fell in drops of thought

As phantoms telephoned.

Been away too long and bought

The crooked steps he zoned.

Slave to audio conformed

As in between the the time

Garden of the sound reformed

To sink in the sublime,

Chris Cornell enjoyed a stay

As new friends jammed in tune.

Like a stone, they learned to play

The highway and the rune.

Be yourself- a mantra's gift

And time had come to pass.

Doesn't call reminder's lift

As out of exile's class

Fire, original in flame,

In revelation's scheme

Burned the solo album's game

As if some sort of dream.

No such thing, a scream long gone,

And many singles sung-

Finally the heart of stone

Forgotten settled, hung.

Temple of the dog avowed

Unsettled pasts revived.

Chris did all he was allowed

And for a while he thrived.

Never known, the reason why

Detroit became the place

Seeds were sewn as his reply;

A sadness filled his face.

Songs performed were not the same,

Conditioned on the ride.

Chris Cornell, a hallowed name,

Committed suicide.

This is for his wife and kids;

The Fans he left behind.

Sadness beckons as it skids

Across the bump and grind-

Friends will not forget the man

Enlisting lyrics writ.

Concerts from the deepest span

Ensure he will not quit.

Lost forever to the earth,

Inside us Chris will give.

Born of grunge and metal's mirth,

His death calls us to live.

Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom lived a princess, alone in a tower. And she was totally fine with that. I mean, who wants to share coffee in the morning with someone else anyway? She had a great job, a couple of guys she dated casually, and a yoga routine.

The End.

Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom under the sea, lived a princess mermaid who was really sick of being a fish. Plus, her dad was so overbearing. So she got some legs from Amazon, worked hard in school, and landed a scholarship to Harvard Law, where she graduated the head of her class.

The End.

Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom lived a princess with skin as white as snow. The queen hated her for being so pretty, so she left. She is now a Victoria’s Secret model and exclusively dates short men.

The End.

Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom lived a princess who had a curse put on her by a moody and evil witch. Instead of keeping in on the down low, her parents told her to steer clear of any and all spinning wheels. Informed, she avoided the curse and no one died.

The End.

Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom lived a girl with a step-mother who was a nightmare. Along with her two daughters, she treated our hero like a slave. So she filed for emancipation, won, and started her own house cleaning business. She fell in love with the lawyer who handled her case, who used to be a mermaid. They are getting married this summer.

The End.

 Five minutes prior not one person cared she was alive, now that she is dead more people know of her existence than ever, still not one of them cares about her in the least. “Why did she jump, who was she, will she be alright?" thease are a few of the question no one botherd to ask. The corpse was identified, and I wrote this story about her but I don't know her name, and I don't want to either.

X-221 is attempting to connect to server.

>Attempting to connect. Failed.

>Attempting to connect. Failed.

>Attempting to connect. Failed.

Unable to connect.

Alice sits and plays with her hair

At the edge of the world she's without a care

Alice, dressed in something other than blue

Perhaps she's happier than you

While she fumbles with ribbons of white

And paints imaginary pictures of delight

Cats inside-out and bloody things

Squashed caterpillars infected with wasps stings

The despair of rabbit, crucified on a clock

The Queen left dead on a chopping block

Yes Alice skips the day away

Insanity is only a conviction if you see the crime

The dazed, distressed, those very first signs

The delicate fall from grace that's a feather in the wind

But its final decent will crack the world with its sin

Little drops of mercury that turn to led

Found in the stomach of a hatter, poisoned and now so dead

Like the rest of Wonderland as it burns in burrows all over the world

Alice's pyromania has the news confused

Don't cross Alice or she'll bring you your death

And their will be no tea party for you before your last breath...

© Richard Withey. All rights reserved.

 My name is Zackary, maybe Tyler, I forgot not that it matters.

 Let me give you the tour, in this soul I hate to think of as my home, there are two hundred corners, all of them dark of course. Nine dead bodies, I hardly remember the people thay used to be but I just can't let them go. The pet cemetery is in the back, that is actually where my parents' marriage was buried too many years ago with any number of animals who never lived long enough to be rememberd. As I am sure you can see the floors buckle like my mother's knees and my father's constitution. The walls are bare, there used to be pictures up there but all memories are bad now. There is no need to show you the kitchen there has never been anything in there. The basement is where the monstres live, you know your run of the mill ones: bogeymen and actual people, nothing you don't have in your basement. Upstairs there are a lot of hiding places: closets, beds, piles of dirty clothe, well you know how to hide, but you should choose carefully you may be in one for a few days. It's not as bad as it sounds, atleast not when you know what the alternitive is. Lastly is the attic, but naturally you can't go up there, thats where I store my anxieties, and well, there isn't much room for anything else.

 Thanks for visiting I will look forward to your return.

I enjoy the ones who use words like paradigm and empirical.

Those folk surely have it all together

Not me, though. Little me. I’m just a rotting vegetable eating meat sack, marinating and languishing in my own juices.

Having said that, yesterday, the veins - my veins - broke through this crazy, crawling concrete skin, exiting out and snaking off in all directions, seeking something, anything to bond with other than me, their host.

At least that was the impression I got based on available evidence.

This made me quite a bit sad. Have I become so difficult to live with that my insides want to be outside?

Betrayal is not a strong enough word.

Taking stock of what was left of myself, I tried calming and centering, adopting an arbitrary approach to what was clearly an outrageous and embarrassing situation.

I spoke in thought to my evacuating innards, explaining to the tyrannic tributary traitors

that without me, they were nothing. This was a codependent coexistence and I was its front man.

Prying a pulmonary from a chair leg, I carefully folded it back inside my chest cavity, only to have the mutinous bastard work its way back through my fingers and wrap itself around the TV.

This vena labyrinth of tissue and plasma that had invaded my once living room was now a prison.

I resembled a grotesque, emaciated octopus. Or that alien from Alien 2.

I've dealt with rejection all my life, but nothing could ever prepare me for something of this magnitude

Hell, I've had the pin pulled on me by the best. Generally what happens is they walk away shaking their heads and blaming our association on either a momentary lapse of reason or alcohol or both. I never worried that much; never been big on attachment anyway.

I was an only child that was very much poisoned early on by his own company.

Never always this detached though.

The kicker was the day my imaginary friend ripped my heart out.

“Its not you, it’s me,” said Randell, as he left via a portal at the rear of my closet. I shut down that day.

Moving along.

I haven't budged from this blood soaked sectional sofa in something like 22 hours.

The veins - my veins - have anchored themselves to a variety of heavy objects, and I am pinned down and being held to ransom by my own body. A body I thought I knew well. A body that, until recently, I had no reason to mistrust.

I hate to moan, though. We all have our problems in life. This just took me by surprise, is all, and I really need a change of underwear.

I'll bounce back, no doubt. I always do, albeit anemic and pissed off. And I will extract fair revenge.

I will hammer each and every one of those traitorous scumbags with whatever low-grade heroin I can find, or I will die trying. This is personal.

Cheers

When I was a student back in the mysterious seventies we had a variety of drinking songs and the most important part of the song in my opinion, was the words. We also had challenges to test or evaluate how stable or drunk we were and what our capabilities were? One of these challenges involved reciting up to twenty sentences, a string of words relating to numbers, I never got the name of this challenge. An example would go – Big fat hen…. Couple of duck…. Three brown bear…. Four fine furze…. etc. etc. My favourite line was…. Eight egotistic egoists egotistically expressing exciting ecstasies…. Nine was also good…. Nine Nubian nymphs nimbly nibbling nuts, which created all sorts of ideas and thoughts for a young man at that time!

So to get to my favourite words, it’s not only their complexity and meaning but also their sound and relevance to the ‘perpetrator’ that counts. For this challenge I choose the words ‘exciting ecstasies’ to see where and what these pleasing ‘conglomerates’ might expose.

Alone and Free

Sneaking a fragment of time

And being all alone

Contemplating the past

Inhabiting places foregone.

I came across some memories

From the dubious past

A collection of ‘exciting ecstasies’

That infinitely will, forever last.

1) Before settling on the Seven Dwarfs we know today, Disney also considered Chesty, Tubby, Burpy, Deafy, Hickey, Wheezy, and Awful.

2) The 3 Musketeers bar was originally split into three pieces with three different flavors: vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.

3) Alaska is the only state that can be typed on one row of keys.

4) That thing you use to dot your lowercase "i" is called a tittle.

5) When the computer mouse was invented, it was called the "X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System."