Within and Without

I am before you, ready.

My body is perfection, the scent of me makes you salivate.

You will sink your teeth into me (before the night is out).

You will taste the best parts of me, we will become one.

Before the night is out.

I know that you're not awake, that you don't understand.

I know you haven't thought it through.

You haven't seen the facts, written on packaging, smoothed over.

You're just as blind as the rest of them.

They, who pushed me onto the platform, who locked me into the rack, and who locked it into me.

(my sisters, beaten into submission watch on, all pain hidden behind broken eyes).

They, who artificially inseminate me, over and over.

They who rape me.

They who take them, my beautiful children who kicked and grew inside me.

I cry for days and weeks, but they don't return my babies.

The grief is always there, it has never subsided.

They, who have shut me away, they who have made me for nothing more than my body.

They, who are deaf and blind to my suffering - they who look on, through the bars of my cage.

I'm just a sumptuous vessel, fed to become bigger for their burning desire. They want me, they fantasize about me.

But they don't want to know me, don't want the commitment, the entanglement, or the knowledge that will ruin their moaning, groaning pleasure.

They are deaf, and they are blind.

I've been shaven, I've been plucked, I've been scraped and skinned and dressed up.

I've been beaten, dragged and tazed.

They tried to knock me out, to make the end painless,

but I was awake while they pierced me, and sliced me open.

They strung me up with chains, and drained me.

And now my beautiful, regal body is bare.

My rolls of fat are gone. My mouth is finally silenced.

I cannot protest their treatment any longer.

I am simply delicious, erotic, naked, -

bred for nothing more than this -

here, now,

you will sink your teeth into me (before the night is out).

You will have me, the best parts of me.

Before the night is out.

Right now, the memories of my existence flash before me.

I smile bittersweet, watching from the ceiling, as you finish, too quickly for any real pleasure.

Pointless, and sad.

Inside you there is the truth, and you secretly, knowingly suppress it.

Enjoy your feast (the killing, the cutting, the raping, the kidnapping).

I wish you easy digestion (breaking what was me into fecal matter and artery blocks).

I'm almost glad that you don't know that I've been sentient this entire time.

Maybe I'm just a stupid cow, a fat pig, mutton dressed as lamb, totally chicken and as cold as a fish.

Maybe I'm nothing more than stolen ova, or the milk from a mother's breasts.

I could be nothing,

I could be everything.

Instead, I'm dinner.

Bon appetit.

~

If what I wrote made you feel anything (because I know you feel something) please consider that feeling, let it stay awhile - even just a moment - before you push it aside and think, 'They're just animals. I don't even like animals that much.'
Maybe just hold the thought in your mind next time you pull a frozen roll of ground beef out of the freezer. Pause and remember. This was a sentient being.
Yes, the tsunami of emotions that may follow with the facing of the truth is devastating.
Yes, it's strange adapting to a life without murdered animals for dinner.
Yes, it's hard.
But it's better to face the facts, and come through the grief as wiser, stronger people.
We can't hide our heads in the sand forever, even though every societal impulse tells us to.
It's okay, we're not alone.

Within and Without is the latest album by the band Washed Out, spearheaded by Ernest Greene.
It's been said that he started the chillwave movement. I think the label is silly, the music seems much deeper and moodier than the name implies.
This was a recommended album on  Amazon.com, I gave it a preview listen, and was sent into a world of sad bliss, if there ever could be such a thing.
The mixture of the music and visuals makes an unusual combination with what I wrote, but I like it because it reveals something, even if all it reveals is that we live behind a strange, lonely facade.
I hope that you have read this far.
I hope you will continue to read.