Tag Archive: meat

“Dear Nature”
by Basil Sunshine

Dear Nature,
Why are you so horrible?
I can’t deny you any more than I can deny
my own skeleton creaking under my own skin, not any more
than I can deny my will to carry on subjecting myself
to this magical misery of yours.
I can’t deny you but I hate you sometimes.

Today we were delighted to meet some piglets that you made.
Who had fuzzy black faces with white spots here and splotches of mud there.
Who shoved wet noses at us and nipped at us for treats.
Who had floppy dog ears and warm human eyes.
Who had, with their little curly tails, about six months left to live.

The farmer said about them, they will be “a lot of ham and bacon.”

And we wanted to weep, didn’t we? Didn’t we want to weep?
Why did we not weep, Daniel?
Looking into their sweet faces, running fingers through their warm fur,
feeling their joy at being alive? And knowing, just knowing.

Because we are so…we have that…je ne sais quoi…yes, yes, because
we are so worldly, we are so hip, we are so downtown, you know, we are
just so full of shit.
Aren’t we?

The truth is we are so stupid that we thought they were pets.

The farmer, why did he say such things?
There were children around, cooing and petting the… the merchandise.
I wanted to scream and claw the golden buttons from his shabby coat.

Maybe he was hungry.
It’s not his fault, Nature.
It’s yours.

I have said over and over, until I am blue in the face,
that I have no quarrel with you.
That I accept you.
Even when you are not kind.
Which is often.

But for the love of all that is holy, there is no good reason
that living things should want to eat each other, is there?
All I want to know is why.
What is the purpose in making corpses taste good?
Why do they contain nutrition? What the fuck is that?
It didn’t have to be this way.

It’s stupid, I hate you, and whoever made you like this
is an asshole.