Vile venom veers through his veins

like velvet.

Temptation taunted,

torments responded.

The damned drowns in

simmering sulfur.

It sears and scorches the skin that sizzles,

splits.

He spits, as pale plumes blacken.

Racked with pain he

cries,

croaks,

chokes.

His hopes for heaven vaporize as the vile venom veers through his veins

like velvet.

Froth festers from the slack-jawed maw,

blathering barbaric prattle.

He babbles--

squeals, squirms, like worms, writhing till he withers while the

whip claps

with clacks,

which cracks

his skin.

We all were scattered molecules that danced around the earth, eventually convalescing into a single personhood. Before uniting as one, they existed again and again, uniting into and subsequently breaking from many forms. Bodies are created from eternal particles, reinventing their own existence through new combinations, new vessels that exist on this earth only ephemerally. Once the vessel fades, decays, shatters, the molecules disperse and find new pairings, new meanings. 

Thus we all have been many things. Inside of our bodies exist a piece of Caesar's dying breath, molecules from the waters of Earth's first rain, particles from the bones of those long dead. And once we die, once our bodies decay, the vessel that holds these parts will break, scattering the molecules again into the world so that they might find rebirth.

I turned on the light and there she hovered, a pellucid apparition floating in my vestibule. My jaw dropped at the sight. Quickly she vanished, but still her presence lingers. 

     "And now, I kill you," shrieked the little girl, holding the tattered stuffed rabbit aloft. With the toy positioned high in the air, her hazel eyes widened as she surveyed the victim below-- a pink bear with a heart-shaped nose. A smile crept across her face as she let out an airy giggle. Then, in a swift, calculated swoop, she smashed the rabbit onto the bear, her halo of golden curls quivering at the violence. 

     "No, stop, help me!" she cried in the voice of the bear. "Don't kill me Mr. Carrot!"

     "It's TOO LATE Pinky!" she said with gritted teeth, positioning the upper legs of Mr. Carrot around Pinky's throat. "You know what you did! And now you must pay."

     Keeping Mr. Carrot on top of Pinky, she ground the toys into the floor, making a gurgling sound from her throat to imitate suffocation. 

     "What are you playing?" her mother asked suddenly, standing in the doorway to the girl's bedroom. Her arms were crossed and her brow was furrowed.

      The girl stopped manipulating her toys and became silent. Slowly, she lifted her gaze to meet her mother's eyes. 

      "Murder," she said.