azazel parish }} district four

I fucking hate the ocean. The volatile rocking of waves, the hungry foam which churns upon the shore. I hate the grains of sand wedging themselves into worn sneakers, grating against sensitive skin and spawning blisters upon my heels. Its energy scares me- pent up rage of an unseen force sloshing against the walls of a fragile sanctuary. But my home is so much less than a home - it's a fucking boat and my family are a bunch of fucking lunatics. To put it nicely.

Since the day I arrived - orphaned and swollen with infancy - I was a rebel. I cried when the world was shrouded in silence, had the audacity to demand attention when none was free to be given. I have a name, one scrawled upon a certificate, but I have only ever been branded one thing: a test. Of faith, of patience. A wolf sewn into sheep's skin and spreading corruption with soft smiles and softer screams.

Most of my nights are spent searching. For affection, for those desperate enough to have me in their beds. It seems I have spent sixteen years drifting away from most everything they idolize. Obedience. Blind faith. Purity. We are made to be lemmings, told to throw ourselves off a cliff at any given chance and called heretics if we do any different. Toxicity seeps from their skin- drips from their honey-laced tongues and I cannot stand it.

And it seems they cannot stand me. For every right I am the wrong- the villain clinging to the shadows and forcing an otherwise perfect world into sin. But lust, greed and pride and gluttony are all that make us human. To be perfect would to be God- and God does not exist. For every hypocrite claiming to to be close to him there is evil stowed away- white lies and angry thoughts.

But they do not matter. She is beauty- Aphrodite incarnate with soft hands grasping at bare skin, pulling me close and begging for more. For anything. Teeth graze swollen lips, smiles shared in between gentle laughs and awkward shuffling. I fall back onto the bed, her knees on either side of my waist and lips leaving red paint upon my stomach. "Joy~" It is a playful whine, fingers woven within carefully curled hair. We are each other's trophies- rewards after a night of partying.

I do not think of the sin as night turns to dawn and navy skies turn pink. I don't think of anything of the sort until I am home and and curled within my own bed, surrounded by lambs with blood soaked into their wool.

A storm is coming. No matter how low I hang my head - whose eyes I avoid - I am seen as nothing but a wolf, one with black fur and foaming jaws. With blood clinging to grey gums. They see me as a predator but I am soft-spoken. Nervous and easily overruled. I do not speak when they punish me, blame me for any wrong doings. My lips are sewn shut, silence the only thing tugging at my tongue the long days spend within a rocking room. A house at the ocean's mercy.

There is not much I hate, not much that spark a fire within my throat and turns the world red with embers and coal. Not even the family that is all I have ever known- especially not Samson. Blood of my blood. The sister who shares my skin. We never knew our parents- the ones who birthed us anyway.

They have ruined her. Turned her into one of them but I would love her even if she was nothing at all. She is perhaps the only friend I have ever had. But in the end I am alone. In my belief, in my life. Every scream stitched to pursed lips, every panic attack silenced with the swallowing of a lump in my throat is a demon to be faced alone.

I do not trust any of them. With my hopes or my fears, with who I have truly become in these years that I have been held captive. Because even that person they would hate, would ruin with black fingernails dug into my jugular. They'll kill me one day- there is not a doubt in my mind. The life I have so desperately clung to is fleeting, slipping from between the gaps in bony fingers and I cannot save myself.

There is no point in swallowing my pride. Pretending to believe the lies fed to us upon a silver spoon would turn me hollow, it would carve out every bit of me that was just that. I would be nothing more than another lamb for the slaughter.

And so I am a scapegoat instead.

I have taken to pretending that I don't care.