@alicesolak
flackback;
he stumbles into the church with broken gasps, torn sails dragging in his wake, the framework of his hull, his body, his torso, a scorched, heaving mess aching under the weight of his latest confrontation the way rotting wood aches under the rage of a storm. the eighteen-year-old boy is a wreckage beneath his own heritage, pushing into the sanctuary with blind eyes, the blue hues of his normally bright irises clouded over with salt water from the sea, from his own double-edged accusations, from his unintended discovery, his maelstrom guilt brewing a hurricane inside him. do all children bleed for the curses of their parents? is this a destiny he can’t escape?
his anger, his hatred, his shattered countenance hovers in his atmosphere as he strides heavily into the main area, down the center aisle between rows and rows of ornately carved pews. his sobs chatter against his teeth, echo against the stained glass windows of virgin mothers and sinless saints, lambs with crowns and lions yawning, all the images inverted from the midnight darkness outside, all of them silent, all of them pitiless, drowned out by the crashing waves of sallybrook’s unending tide, water flooding inwards, children flooding outwards, and noah with too much history in his blood.
he wanders up near the stage before collapsing on his knees beside one of the pews, aware of the fact that he looks entirely ridiculous, aware of the fact that he’s being wholly dramatic right now, and foolish and useless and demoralized and defeated, but as he turns and crumples up against the wood so much more solid than anything inside his own chest, he figures; if you can’t break down in a house meant for the broken, where else can you? the place is empty anyway. there are no gods or ghosts here.