Sinner's Place {h.s}

one.

Smells of red wine, crunching crackers and cold fall mornings, gripping onto your jacket while your body tightens for warmth. Little prayers before breakfast, lunch and dinner then bed. Hiding everything away and revealing everything all at once. Crying in the bathroom, hoping that he would forgive you for everything. It's the fear of burning, after this. Somethings that feel so fictional could be so real to someone in their mind.

My mind.

It felt like a fairy tale when I first started going to church. A beautiful, wonderful fairy tale. 'If you're a good person, you'll make it to heaven.' with rules that you must live by first. You must do everything right. No rooms for mistakes. If you do this all right, heaven will be waiting for you. Repent once and only once, do not make anymore mistakes after.

I lived my life like this since birth. I grew up here, I had my first crush here - I made my first best friend here. Wednesday's and Sunday's every single week. I used to run down these fields with the kids, holding flowers tightly in my hand for my parents. Small flowers I had picked just for them.

I never thought I would be sweating in church before, never thought I could hold my bible with sweaty palms and white knuckles as the Father preached about the afterlife and how beautiful it is to die and go straight into the arms of our savior.

How could I be so terrified of something that I grew up with? The thoughts of heaven and hell - my parents always told me I would surely go to heaven, but there were secrets I was keeping from them. I wasn't the innocent girl they thought I was anymore.

I fucked up and I knew that.

Hell is waiting for me.

That leads me to where I am right now, sitting outside of the church on the stairs. Church was closed today. No one is here, but when I feel like I need to clear my head, I come here. It's always exhausting feeling like I have to beg God to forgive me for every single fuck up that I have. I grew up in a very, very strictly religious household. We lived by the bible. We listened to the Fathers words every day - even if we had already listened to it before. I could recite it word for word.

Some would say I'm brainwashed, some would say that I'm in a cult and some would say that this is karma for the things I've done in my life and I think about it every second of my life. Living, breathing, all of this - no substance. I have became a empty shell of a person that has a daily routine.

"Anna." A voice snapped me out of my head, my eyes flickered up as I stood carefully. It was just Gracie. She was my best friend. Someone I even held secrets from, in fear of her judgement. We had been friends since we were kids.

"Gracie, hey." I smiled tightly, smoothing down my shirt slowly, "How are you doing today?"

"I could ask you the same thing," She chuckled, looking past me towards the church, "I stopped by the house, I was gonna see if you wanted to go get lunch with me and a few of our friends. Your parents said you came here."