written by Jill Dyer (writer, Trauma Narrative Specialist, mother, and dear friend)

Listen here: https://los-cazados.simplecast.com/episodes/skull-hill-by-jill-dyer

I see in my mind’s unruly eye

Mob of humanity, sharks circling kill

Watching skull hill decorated with torture

I taste dirt in teeth, smell acidity of fear

I could not watch you hang by nails

Without fleeing sweat, dripping red life

Soul would writhe until I chose

To climb up, kiss eyelids

To put hands on wounds

To stop flow of blood

Or I would have run horror

Out through legs, tears in torrent

Legs could not run far enough

To escape love proven by stripes

Lashes too many for hands to cover

Too deep for soul to hold

I am left with grit in mouth

Salt in eyes, tin taste in mouth

As weight of love falls hard 

Pressing worth into every cell

Wrenching shame from fingertips

I come face to face, breathe to breathe,

Forehead to forehead, lip to lip with 

                                       Love.

 

Day Three

What did resurrection feel like within your skin?

Head pressed hard, three days on rock

Limbs stiff, skin drying taught

Eyes sand paper and rot

Tongue swollen like sea sponge

Corpse empty of energy

Were you pierced with power?

Like wrist pierced with nails?

Where you made new in a moment?

Or did life return leisurely?

Neck twists head

Back and forth 

Working out kinks

Working in redemption

Limbs wake tingling

Blood trickles through veins, arteries,

Capillaries, soft tissue.

Blood ran red, spent your life

Now flows crimson to recreate. 

Eyes blink awake

Saline washes to saturate, cleanse.

Saliva softens concrete tongue

decreasing in size

To increase in power.

Did you break grave clothes

Like Samson broke pillars?

Or unwrap one by one 

Relishing rid of death’s bind?

Did you run from hell-cave

With a child's skip?

Or stroll, enjoying bird-song,

Dew-smell, air new with day?

I long to be present to daily rebirth.

What does resurrection feel like

                                 within MY skin?