I only exist to die.

It's weird that so many humans think that's normal and okay.

They literally enslaved my kind--

Raised them,

Bred them,

Made them grow fat,

So they could slaughter them and sell them

To people who wanted to stuff themselves.

Sure, they could easily satisfy their hungers other ways

With breads, or potatoes, or greens,

Or literally anything else.

But the holiday demands me.

Well, not me exactly...

My corpse

And all my friends' corpses as well.

Millions of lives for one holiday.

Not human lives, no.

But in what way is a human life

Worth more than a bird's?

Some food for thought.

Thanksgiving Day,

As My Fowl Soul

Hovers Over

The Center Roast

It's Like They Said,

Gobble, Gobble...

#Challenge

#HolidayDinner

#TurkeyPerspective

I came into this world in misery

and left it just the same.

I was never granted an ounce of dignity

or given my own name.

I was just a number on a plastic ring

clamped around my leg,

destined for nothing but a cruel death

from the moment I left my egg.

My beak was sliced with a hot blade,

making it hard to eat or breathe.

Still I grew so big, so fast

that I struggled to stand on my feet.

My legs finally snapped beneath my weight

leaving me to flail on the shit-stained earth.

No one tried to help me

for so little was I worth.

Finally, after 16 weeks

they threw us in trucks destined for the killing floor.

I was scared when I smelled blood

but thought maybe I wouldn't have to suffer anymore.

But the blades were dull and crude

from killing too many too fast

and when it came my turn to die

those dull blades made my suffering last.

My throat was cut shallow and quick

leaving me alive to see the end.

I watched paralyzed as one by one

the scalding tank boiled my friends.

I find myself on your table

while you all gather around to give thanks

by slicing into my tortured flesh

and pulling out a bone to break.

You do not question this tradition,

you just pass the gravy to pour

and it's clear to me that on Thanksgiving

there is nothing for turkeys to be thankful for.

It was not enough

you killed and chilled my carcass

now instead of a proper burial

you cook me

and tear my flesh

in a gathering of the tribe

a feast for your laughing mouths

stuffed and gravied

but wait one last ceremony

passed down from father to child

my breast bone

the one that protected my heart

in life

is grappled apart

by the youngest

yanked in two

pinched between

fingers and thumbs

the winner to gain

the fable of good luck

for the year

to come

as my bones are thrown

without ceremony

into a black trash bag

to be removed

next Tuesday.

Today I get to be a star

Everyone will stare

Placed on the table where they are

And see my cooked ass bare

I never had much fame alive

I could be from incest

Oh here it it the carving knive

I have to look my best

Today all eyes upon me

They smell the cook did baste

Drooling they are hungry

It's me they want to taste

Alive another pecking bird

A gobble did I mention

Dead I do not say a word

And have all the attention

My life was of obscurity

Until the Christmas Day

Now I can say with surety

I'm famous here today

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, happy thanksgiving. I'm about to be chopped up and carved after being cooked too long and stuff and this is the thanks I get for giving. I don't get it. They could eat all this other food on the table, like the greens, a bit greasy but good. The mac and cheese, colon clogging but tasty. The corn pudding, half cooked but sweet. The stuffing, stiff wet bread, but smell like garlic. And some other food groups sure to kill you somehow. But the pride of the night is me. They clap when they see me and smile for days. How about the ham, I know he raises your blood pressure but he means well. Me, I'm just juicy, tasty, and nutricious. Damn, I just wrote my will!

They gathered around me and chopped off my head

They ripped out my feathers and filled me with bread

Into the oven, I now go

Slathered in butter and cilantro

Baking in the oven for half a day

While they are free to laugh and play

Moved to the table, I see the knife

Held by the farmer’s pretty wife

I faint, glad I won’t feel

As I become a Thanksgiving meal.

The nightmare begins

I am taken from my friends, my family

I have been brought to this strange world of two legged wingless creatures

I am lying on a cold surface

The silver flashes before my eyes

The world goes dark

The bones of my body fall to the ground to be fought over by dogs.

Next year:

My kin will suffer the same:

The nightmare will never end.

FREEDOM FOR THE TURKEYS