lady briyani
CW Very graphic crucifixion descriptions of a sex worker woman who was crucified by Roman authorities- but it ends on how it inspires me today.
by lady briyani
Pull out the ruins of my teeth: we’ll make joyous love as cop cars and stars burn out around us
Dreams like these always beckon me after a night’s labour-
Dreams like this, always haunted me: always affirmed my womanhood in crimson
I remember the girl I was in a life long lived!
I close my eyes and see my ancestresses beckon me to their crosses
Crosses no church wants to see let alone display
Crosses that decorated the sides of highways like the monuments to car accidents
I am like my mothers and sisters before me
Outstretched for them on this piece of wood
Wrists and ankled roping my sky clad body to the cross
Thirsty, eyes glaring in the Sun, teeth bared in a grimace of pain
Give bitter drinks to sedate and tame me
(as if the flagrum’s claws didn’t do that already-!)
As the nails shock me
As the nails shock me
As lightning bolts of pain flow like molten white hot metal through my wrists and ankles
My whipped back scraping rough unforgiving timber
Swallowed their numbing potion, no friend’s tincture but my head swims even more in the summer heat
The laughter of the leering men, the haughty mothers glad to see an errant, sinful woman punished justly ring in my ears as my head shakes
As my head shakes
I twist and squirm, trying to deal with the agony
Roman military might
My brown skin burning in the sunlight
Cope with the pain-
Impossible to, when even breathing hurts, even crying hurts, sobbing, whimpering my mother’s name
Wishing I could have gifted life to a child in my belly
Wondering how long I’ll last in this heat
Wondering too, at the way my body is pinned by wrist and ankle to this cross, a girl unworthy of pity, let alone respect
Left alone
Just me and the Sun
My thoughts my swollen tongue murmurs my cracked lips barely greet the words, hardly let them pass-
“I am a working girl, I am a whore, a slut, a bitch, a tramp, a piece of shit…a thief. A murderess…so they say. A soldier takes advantage-he later took a dagger-what can I say?”
Sighing, I try to…foolish, I know! once more shift my body in a way that will cause me less agony
Gasping, I once more attempt to balance, try to position my ass right on the corner edge of the stipes, try to bear the unbearable and put my weight on my spiked heel bones
My eyes roll back
My throat is far too dry to scream anymore
“Hadassah of Tyre – Murderess Whore”
Above my head, worn around my neck as I carried the crossbeam my wrists are now nailed to
Not that my name matters much, lowly criminal that I am
I am today’s show to be forgotten in a month
Hours hours hours
Soaked in blood, sweat and tears truly
I finally gasp my last
My brown bare body slumps lower
On my cross for a final time
I awake in a cold sweat sobbing once more
Try to regain my composure once more
Frantically look at my wrists, down at my body once more
To find I am not outstretched on a Roman cross as a conquered brown woman
To find the fire still burns within my heart with pure rage
Like the nails burned through the delicate flesh and bone and nerves of the girl I was and am
