Cyst

you ever just sit or lay
on your bed and stare at
the ceiling and wonder
if you’ve ever eaten meat from an animal
that was the offspring of another animal
you’ve eaten?

I’ve once read an article about the
food industry’s secret glue
that can paste together the meat
belonging from many animals and
makes it look like it’s from a single one

thus you could eat beef thinking
that it’s from a cow
when in fact it’s from nine different cows
of nine different ages and breeds

a friend of mine declared herself vegan
after she sliced a steak and found
gray slimy puss oozing from it.
The blade struck a cyst

“I’m a vegan forever from now on!”
she screamed

And I said, “I’m a writer.”

“What?” she said. “What’s that have
to do with what I said?”

“I’m a writer,” I repeated. “Meaning I have to
compare everything to writing. Your discovery
of the cyst inside the steak is akin to reading
a really nice book only to reach the most
disturbing scene you’ve stumbled upon in a long
while and be taken by surprise and change your
opinion about the whole book.
There are some books like that. Doesn’t mean
they all are though.
And unlike a meat eater, I like to believe
a writer can tell the difference between a book
written by a single person and a collaborative
project.”

“Boy, you’re scaring me.”

“Can I have that steak?” I said.

“Wah? You… don’t mean to eat it, do you?”

“Nah, my cousin has a dog who surely
won’t mind the cyst.”

she gave me the steak
and she didn’t ask (I only wanted her to),
but the writer
equivalent of this situation would be
to recognize when a story fails
real bad and instead of stubbornly striving
to submit to agents
you just give it away for free,
publish online,
maybe even under a pseudonym

Anyway
the dog loved that steak.

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