#sea monster x oc

[ur-mousey]

Confessional ~

Verse 1

  "I clung to your hands

      so that something human might exist in the chaos."

-      Hèlène Gixous, from "Olivier De Serres- A Single Passion Two Witnesses," Love Itself: In the Letter Box (Polity Press, 2008)

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* Ingrid *

It is in the wind, and the rocks, and within the waves. It is the echo of the lost places of our soul's past and our grief for them. Hiraeth n.(Welsh) A spiritual longing for a home which maybe never was. Nostalgia for ancient places to which we cannot return. It is nowhere and it is everywhere. And it is the place in between where I belong. 

It's 1992, and I have longed for eleven years. I counted the waves rolling back into the sea, ten times over, each year on my birthday. And when this September 9th comes, I'll join my mother and sisters in their songs under the full moon's cast. I'll put my lips to wine and drown myself with seafoam. Who dares to follow will be welcomed in my embrace because a home deserves its people. And I'm terrified of being alone.

There was a place I once called home, far over the ocean's horizon. Where women gathered without their men but with their daughters. I grew up there, blessed and loved by all. A spark of blonde whisps that bounded to and fro. And all of the new women that came kissed the ground that I'd walked on with bare feet. Their pasts were unknown to me from places unseen by me. I only knew of the isle. And what a massive landscape it was. 

There was one structure on the island. Crafted from the love of the land, untouched by most humans. A cathedral that shifted from left to right, and inside out to outside in. It had wondering feet that escaped people's sights. No one room kept its original spot or had doors that entered it along the same wall used before. Things disappeared when needed most and reappeared at whim but were never bound to be found where it was last seen. Lavish decor cycled through stages of novelty. Some became impoverished too quickly while others flourished gold under the sun's gleam. The women made it a game to hunt the sly-footed cathedral down with offerings in hand. They wanted to be in God's favor.

However, it was quite elusive.

But, not to I who was welcomed within its halls, guided where my heart desired. 

If overcome with fatigue from my embarkment then there would be a frilly white canopy bed awaiting my lax body where I'd burry my face into the scratchy tuff of my beloved lion plush, Leo. He accompanied me to all places unfit for Mother to venture. If I were joyful, there would be a room of porcelain dolls and a play mansion. My imagination would run amok of what men's courting a woman should look like. At the time, I wanted to be swept off my feet like that. They'll have a different gait and stride based on what the other women gossiped over, that I've yet to see for myself. They'll praise women in woeful pain knowing profound art would be on the other side. And, when men are not needed, they'd take it. 

When I didn't know where to go, I'd wander the halls with Leo to a shallow pool where I'd find my friend, the octopus. He would splash water on my face, tentacles curling around my arm to keep me upright in water up to my chin. He even taught me to swim before my mother could.  

I was only six, a being filled with imagination. He could've been imaginary, yet he felt real to me. He was my home. He taught me much. But as I had once imagined men, I wonder if I'd return to meet him, and he would be the cruelest of them all.

. . . . . .

Sister Grace Marie never saw my appearance as 'conducive' to the church. No matter where I walked on campus, I felt her beady-eyed stare up my fucking skirt. I wore the shitty uniform; unbuttoned at the collar: plaid blue skirt hiked to the cup of my ass: my frizzy mane contained in a messy ballet bun: and I was on my best behavior half of the time. I prayed at each meal that Koen would fuck off and finish last. I attended classes with little bite back because there would be nowhere to go if expelled. Then there was the bible I kept tucked between my thighs when I sat, noted and highlighted from years locked in this place. Though, with all that combined, it doesn't hide how shit-faced one can get before confessional.

"Sister got her eyes on you~" Annika singsonged into my ear.

I replied, "She must have the fattest crush on me." The pews were stocked full with herds of other students, one by one entering the booth to confess their mortal sins.  

Annika giggled alongside me, tapping eagerly at my knee. "Ingrid, hear me out. We sneak off to the shore tonight. Maybe we'll spot that wretched island of yours."

"It won't show," I whispered. "It doesn't like washed-up whores like you." I smothered kisses along the curve of her nose and hung off her shoulders. I glanced at Sister Grace Marie who scowled at the display. Her face puffed and reddened like an apple I wished to bite.

"So, is it a no to sneaking out?" 

I turned to Annika humming a tune of the isle. I longed for the lute to wash over the melody as the procession of drums amounted to greater heights, bouncing off the cave walls. Women had danced to this song and sung it to their children in the early hours in the vegetable field. Women sang this song each summer solstice and when children were blessed by their first bleed. It was a song of pure womanhood, which only I bear. And I kept it locked in a safe, buried behind my rib cage, scared that it'd be taken away from me. I was seldom aware that my home no longer existed outside of my body.

"I would go anywhere with you. And out of this damn church." I slouched further sideways into Annika's warmth, now subjected to the organ's melancholy praise to the lord "If I could show you my home, I would. You would love it there. Anyone would have. There were no rules to be broken. We shared everything. Love, experiences- it was a true home." 

"It's not like the rumors?"

I shook my head, "Nothing at all like it. Everyone here's a pansy."

Annika's fingers scratched at my scalp, "You talk fondly of the Isle that it's hard to believe that... they all died. My aunt got caught up in it. I do wonder if she had felt the same as you."

"We all felt the same." 

"But, you were six!  When are you going tell everyone your story?"

I tsked, glancing over my shoulder at Sister Grace Marie who motioned for me to sit up. "Right after I confess to the priest that I had homosexual thoughts about a certain nun." 

. . . . . .

I never quite liked enclosed spaces. 

Even the Isle's cathedral expanded similar to lungs with each trepid step. I had a whole island to explore. And I slept in tents made of thin white sheets, blown open for all the women to gather inside. We slept together, rarely with the need to be alone. And the moon showed himself full of elation, never shrouding us in darkness due to his lust for the sun who loved him back dearly. We were blessed and truly loved. We were beings truly protected by god. 

Wild foxes set up camp on our doorsteps and followed us younglings to the bathroom. While fluffy feathered owls perched across the woodlands, hunting for tomorrow's breakfast. They protected the land while my friend, the octopus, controlled the winds and the waves.

Confessionals started in a box. 

This one had one hundred and sixteen mini-decorative crosses carved into the exit. The number never grew or fell short with each season I found myself here -autumn being my favorite. I could imagine myself cosplaying a true believer in repentance. "Bless me Father for I have sinned. It has been four months since my last confession. These are my sins." I halfheartedly recount while my knee bounced to the pace of my heart. 

"I think of myself defected," I begin.  My thumb ached around the ridges of my teeth. I have spoken more than I cared to admit. Might keep it going. "God doesn't exist here... As a child, he was everywhere -wherever I walked, green followed. Since I came here, he has forsaken me. I believe God hates me because I'm not pure of the mainland. I should be on the island. Now, I drink myself stupid. I'm not a whore but close to it. At least Sister thinks it. I've stolen, cussed, and been to the cops countless times. Even before I committed my first crime...

And, when I think about that, I get violent. I haven't acted on it, yet, but I want to -so badly- crush the skulls of those around me. Do you know what they call me, Father? Not only am I a daughter with no actual father but I am a Satanic Princess. The Seaside reject, ha. And you Catholics act so above it all. So my sin, I don't believe in your God."

A beat of silence came before a heavy sigh. "Child, God hears you now. He's within this room and as a servant of God, I listen and understand. This is the first that you've ever spoken so earnestly here. We are proud of you. You say God hates you, yet you're the sole survivor of that Island, I'll beg to say he loved you the most. He spared you of their fate."

"Hmm, you say that." I wilt into the heaviness of my head. "But, I hate it here. It's suffocating. I'd rather be where they are -wherever that is."

"Would you do as they did?"

I thought about it. "No"

"Why?"

"I'm afraid that they'll cast me out. Or that I wouldn't find them on the other side. Especially if I die here. It's terrifying... trying to take your own life."

"You are a vessel of God. You entered and will exit at his will if you so choose. They were lost and committed a grave sin. And at his divine ordainment, he brought you to us. Your life was spared. You are devout, but you will always be split between the Isle and here. Could you accept that?"

I thought about it. No.

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Thank you for reading! Request rules are here! Follow my ig = lil.thoughts.xo!

This story will be updated on Wattpad at least once a month. The first three chapters will be uploaded on my blog in its entirety. But, to read the full thing, head over to my Wattpad down below. Wattpad = @ calypssee, #second.thoughts

An A03 version will be made in the future.