They birthed us into metal,
not light or even air,
but heat lamps and screaming steel,
the floor already coated
in yesterday’s version of ourselves.
We were slick and blinking,
wet with newness,
and still they stamped us:
Product of tradition. Best before death.
Hands in latex gloves
cooed lullabies
while scraping placenta from the drain.
They taught us to crawl
between cleavers,
to smile when we were handled,
to hold still when the slicing came
because it’s not personal,
because they love us,
because their hands hurt too.
They shoved their trauma down our throats
before we grew teeth.
Force-fed us their coping mechanisms
like communion
bite-sized bitterness
they called resilience.
Swallow it.
Say thank you.
We didn’t know any better.
Meat doesn’t ask why.
Meat just learns to stay warm
and pretend the hook isn’t coming.
They called the bleeding becoming.
Called the bruises bad days.
and the conveyor destiny.
We rotted in place,
but they sprayed us down,
made us presentable;
vacuum-sealed smiles,
shrink-wrapped hope.
The air always smelled like bleach and denial.
Some of us tried to scream
but by then our mouths were already full
stuffed with apologies,
with other people’s f*cking expectations,
with the same dull knives they said
they “survived” with.
And when we flinched,
they told us we were lucky.
Lucky we weren’t born into fire.
Lucky they only carved out
what they couldn’t understand in themselves.
Love, they said,
was just the sound of the band saw
getting closer.
No more, no less.
And still -
We line up.
We inherit the gloves.
We raise our children
beneath the same heat lamps,
and pretend
it’s destiny.
A documentation of early trauma and conditioning, marked by systemic suppression of authentic emotion.
Patterns of inherited pain encoded as survival mechanisms.
Compliance prioritized over wellbeing.
Resilience redefined as silent endurance of mechanized cruelty.
A cycle of suffering passed down, masked as love and duty.
The wound is ongoing, unseen but ever-present.
