The delusionality of labeling “happy” the animals we send to slaughter

feels like proclaiming there were lots of “happy” train passengers in Germany in the first half of the 1940s

Like smoke wasn’t billowing either way

Dead, processed, packaged

Once swimming around

Plunging into boiling water

A painful death

When I ordered the veggie burger and you asked me,

“If you wanted something that tastes like meat, why don’t you just eat meat?”

Our families are ripped from us,

just prior to their being ripped apart

You gave them room to move about 

with grasses, hills, and trees

But we stuff them tightly into sheds

to live amongst disease 

To the rancher who tagged me on his video,

Asking if his cows looked “unhappy,”

I responded,

“Show me the video of their slaughter and we’ll see”

The auctioneer sets the minimum bid

for a life already battered,

and the eager crowd decides

when to raise a hand to up the ante

Congress finds that no method of slaughter shall be deemed humane

Houdini shocked the world when he once made

a single elephant seemingly vanish into thin air

While we make eight million animals disappear

every hour

A funny thing, the English Language

Like how fish as a noun means one of 32,000 species

While fish as a verb means to attempt to kill them

Grab a bib,

this is gonna get messy

There is no sweetness

in your sweetbread,

kindness was not

on the menu 

Pidge was nameless 

when the day began,

the day that was to be his last

Meatless Mondays

for those of us who

don’t want animals to suffer

...every day

Happy Cows?! Humanely Raised Hens?!

Have you been hitting grandpa’s liquor again?

I don’t want you to look at my words and think you are a terrible person

only to have him dragged away from you almost immediately, as you cry out in protest and despair

I pace in desperation,

my life reduced

to redundant circles

never leading me anywhere

A tradition of thanks, centered on death 

Oh, the contrast, the absurdity

Wait. You said I was silly

You went on and on about protein

You said God gave you animals to eat