Meat Cute

If you could have one skill, what would it be? 

I’d make someone fall in love.

A Midas touch alchemized into Cupid’s arrow

destined for somewhere just north of bare minimum,

its arrowhead biting into anything tastier than a less-than-savory moral compass. 

A meat lover.

Someone willingly eager for 

verified.

bona fide.

USDA-certified prime me. 

Infatuated with my flavors 

and my layers

loving because of

instead of despite. 

Gentle fingers sandwich between succulent ribs, 

as a thankful mouth says grace before feeding its soul.

But such romantic notions are frivolous things.

Reality’s reflection mirrors a butcher shop window,

where greedy eyes skim across skin stretched thin across thighs that are anything but. 

Passersby marveling at the marbling of this tender filet, flayed open on the altar of public opinion. 

Fat-free culprits sit on their pulpits 

eating their curds and what do you weigh. 

There I stand.

My vulnerable underbelly pressed firmly against the butcher’s glass cage,

unable to step down from a pedestal I didn’t ask to be affixed.

Hanging in the balance, much like this pipe dream of an austere arrow,

now soaring past loving because of and settling for despite.