Purgatory
In Catholic belief, purgatory is the waiting room of the afterlife: not heaven, not hell, a place where a soul is stuck in between. Taylor uses it for emotional limbo. In The Fate of Ophelia the speaker "might've lingered in purgatory" before being rescued, caught in a state that's not quite alive and not quite dead, waiting without the power to change anything. It's the holding pattern between the death of hope and any kind of rescue.
Purgatory is the in-between: the speaker is suspended, neither fully alive nor fully dead, waiting for something to shift that she can't shift herself. It differs from hell, which is a final punishment, because purgatory always carries the chance of getting out.
Appears in 1 song
“I might've lingered in purgatory”
Purgatory represents the speaker's in-between state before being rescued, not fully alive and not fully dead, a liminal space of emotional suspension. Uncle Jerry connects it to the theological tradition of purgatory as the destination of those who die by their own volition or inaction.