cows have four stomachs and still die empty.

in a lab somewhere, a scientist unfolds

the intestines of some thing, too small to fight back,

fingers gloved and unfeeling. he mutters

something about evolution, how bodies learn to digest pain

if you give them enough time. i dream of swallowing

stones, weighing myself down with the detritus of the earth—

i want to know how much i can hold before i split

at the seams, before my insides

become a map of unprocessed sorrow. in another life,

i am a butcher. i name each cut, memorize the texture of muscle

beneath my hands, find beauty in the precision of the blade.

in this one, i can’t even look at raw meat

without remembering the sound of something breaking.

a rib, maybe. or a voice, choked down—

i read that deer eat birds sometimes,

desperate for minerals their bodies cannot make. imagine

being so starved you devour your own myths. imagine

chewing on feathers just to keep breathing