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Content warning: Religious trauma
Trapped in the confines of blind faith.
They branded her long before she even knew the weight of her own name– that she was . They whispered to her through the blood—she was Cain’s daughter, Sin Bearer Sinbearer of an unholy communion older than time, XXXX. The house was a shrine, every corner a whisper of absolute order, same as the routine that followed it. Tend to the garden, prepare meals (always have soup or Father will be mad again), clean your brother’s room, wash and fold clothes—she always knew contentment was a serene acceptance, a delicate surrender to the life laid before her.
Until the days blended into one another and she couldn’t tell dawn to night, but they praised her diligence, her obedience as though these qualities were virtues chiseled from the very fabric of her being. They told her stories of Eden lost, bloodlust on sacred ground to girls whose wombs weren’t warm enough, who were born with a demon in their eyes—so-called ‘sins of the fathers’ where the unspoken curses twist and contort through the bloodline until they became part of the very fabric of their being.
The walls of the house kept her clean, she thought. Yet beneath the surface, the monotony that once felt comforting now clawed at her insides. She felt a weight when she thought of the girl who lived across the barn, the girl with emerald eyes that made her feel heavy, unyielding. She could feel it in her bones, the Want that crept through her veins like ants, that twisted her spine and burnt.
Lost in the storm of desire and doctrine.
Her house, once a sanctuary, now felt like a metal cage, painted with scenes of virtuous lives and selfless sacrifice. She watched the world beyond with longing eyes, she kneels and prays and begs but her abode, with its hymns of deliverance, could not save her. The sermons echoed every Sunday, but her prayers were met with silence and her family’s voice reached her. The angry welts on her back, lectures, her brother’s knowing glances, a heartbreaking symphony in the middle of the night—they all reminded her of her ungratefulness. She finds the serpent’s mark on her wrist and etches the blade deeper.
When the sanctuary becomes a cage.
And so, she lived with the weight of it, that she was cursed long before she drew her first breath. It was a legacy written in blood, and she bore all of it. She bites into the pomegranate and swallows herself, every piece of a sacrifice to the God who watches from above with disdain, never with eyes of love. She savours the ruby seeds for beauty she longs to share, hands on skin, breath hot against neck, and she can almost taste her, sweet and bitter like the fruit they dare not name.
This is a hunger that twists inside her, for a love that devours. She learned from the Church to eat of her own flesh, to gnaw at her hearts and cleanse herself whole. In the end, she could only do what she has always done——to carry the dagger within her, and pray pray pray through her father’s lashings that she might find a way to break the cycle, though she knew in her heart that despite her deepest desires, the mirror of compliance would always reflect the same unchanging truth. If God is all-loving, then why do I still suffocate?
Written By: Madeline Lee
