Forgive Me Father | J.hs

0.

ZERO
- - - - -

"Forgive me father, for I have sinned."

There has always been some form of sanctuary, some form of security in which I felt everytime I stepped into the cathedral. The way the stained glass windows shielded those of us who stood inside of the building, protecting us from the horrors that floated above the streets outside of these very steel doubled doors. My footsteps are light echos as I stride down these hollow floors, run my fingertips against the walls that have been touched by the hands of saints and sinners all alike. I hear the thumping of my restless heart as I sit down on the plush red stool beside the opened window of the priest who is ready to hear my confession. Judge me for the sins that I have committed, and even the ones that I have not. At last, I am ready to rid myself of the evil that has managed to consume my very existence in the short span of three months.

"What have you come to me for, my child? What is it that you ask of me?"

His voice is as solid as stone. There is this certain coolness that fills the space between us. His silhouette is but a blur in my peripheral vision. I cannot find it in myself to face him, no matter how much I knew I probably should've. I was ashamed. They say that in the house of the lord, shame holds no purpose. Yet I am the epitome of ignominy as I sit beside the priest with my heart in my lap. Shame, is who I am.

My voice quivers as I finally gain the strength to part my lips and speak.

"F-forgiveness father. I need your forgiveness. I need to confess to you."

"What is it that you have done?"

So very much.

So much, I didn't even know where to begin. My life had taken a downward spiral and I no longer had any sense of direction. I couldn't pick myself up, I did not know where to go. I had been traveling through this sea of infinite affliction ever since the day that I met him.

How was it, that a person could make you feel so alive one minute, only to break you down piece by piece the next?

I was alone at a cross road. He had taken me so far away from my savior I no longer had a vision of him anymore. I couldn't remember the woman that I once was before I met him. But I could vividly remember everything that came after him.

"I..." I pause to lick over my chapped lips. My skin is a deep, smooth brown. Currently coated by a layer of sweat. The term "sweating like a sinner in church" had never applied to my life as much as it did now. For I was quite literally a sinner in church, sweating uncontrollably at that.

"I...fell in love, father. I fell in love with a m-man that wasn't my own. A man who wasn't even a man really." I sniffled, quickly bringing my hand up to swipe away my tears that seemed to be forming by the millisecond.

"Oh he was the devil, father!" I sobbed. It hurt. It physically hurt for me to speak so illy of this man. A man who I once thought I was in love with. A man who was a jack of all trades. A man who had been many of my first. A man who ruined me. I couldn't bring myself to tarnish his name. It was my fault that I had fallen in love with him. It was my fault that I had allowed myself to become so foolishly blinded by his attention. By his time. By his experience. My sins were simply a reflection of my own stupidity, and I had to deal with them.

"You must acknowledge such sin before you ask for forgiveness." The priest says. I nodded, for I already knew that. It was hard to think about him without having tears form. He broke me down to the dust.

"Yes, father. I'll tell you everything. Please, please hear me." I begged.

"What was his name, my child?"

His name... he went by many, I was told. But instead of saying so, I spoke of what he himself told me I could call him. And mentioned what others addressed him as. Knowing that he had a name made him seem a little less fictional, and made me seem a lot less crazy.

"W-well, he told me I could call him Hoseok. But there were others who called him Hope..."

FORGIVE ME FATHER