Electricity-

searing through

every vein,

body brimming with

voltage, head to toe,

lightning

that strikes

every nerve simultaneously;

blinding, white hot pain

then blackness.

Flames-

the piercing spasms

of ten thousand sunburns

combined with

the unbearable heat

of smothering summer darkness

licks slowly

up

up

up

your legs,

choking, choking

on dry smoke

and the ash of your own body;

screams, melting flesh, can't breathe, can't breathe

then blackness.

Nails-

cleaving wrists

and feet

invasive, bone-deep,

soul-deep

pangs, aches, agony

as they punch out the other side

and iron

meets beam,

locking limbs in place.

Then lifting,

lifting,

lifting,

until you're

finally,

horribly,

upright,

hanging by your wrists,

iron grating

and grinding

against bone,

slowly,

oh so slowly,

suffocating under your own weight,

as muscle and sinew,

convert from

allies

to traitors,

turning on you,

compressing

and eventually crushing

your lungs;

minutes...hours...days

then blackness.

Oh, humanity.

Oh terribly, cruelly creative

humanity.

So many torturous ways

to kill,

to execute

each other.

-the chair

-the stake

-the cross

-countless, countless others…

each more brutal

than the last.

Oh, humanity.

Yet somehow…

the cross left

this darkness

for light,

a symbol of hope for

millions.

Men, women, children

everywhere

draw hope from

the cross

WHY?

W h y ?

Because

we know

who it has

murdered - killed - slaughtered

massacred - executed - terminated

sacrificed

but didn't

destroy, and

who it failed

to defeat.

The cross

couldn't

defeat

H I M.