I was helping make dinner.
I was shredding a rotisserie chicken
A fat lobe of meat and bones
As I dug in splitting white meat between my fingers
Peeling the roasted skin off the belly of the beast
Just scraping
muscle and meat
It was so cold.
It felt primal
I thought about how It doesnât feel as morbid as if I the chicken was uncooked, intact, But still dead.
How it was prepared
Lack of innards, of feelings, life.
As I shredded, pulled, and tore off pieces of chicken I began seeing the skeletal structure
The carcass
It was a little sad
Removed of all empathy, there was no negative emotion other than food. I didnât look at it and registered it as a past life form. It was sustenance.
It was bittersweet, in all of its complexity.
Once I completed getting most the meat and skin off the chicken, I decided to save the bones.
It was kind of disgusting, digging around, prodding its body and having to flip it around. At some point, it became less about preparing for dinner and more about studying it.
I mean Iâve never examined a rotisserie chicken before. Who has?
Even cooked, as I bared it to the bones I could see meat that was once muscle. I could feel rubbery tendons, the cartilage holding parts in place.
You never really notice the purple pink tint to the skin resting between the ribs, or notice the little tail it has till you pop the cartilage off.
It was humane, at its lowest I questioned the horror of it. My own body and bones stripped and examined.
My own body and soul, my ribs stripped and my heart taken, my literal core.
Then I let it be. I let it go, and I decided to stop making associations between me and a rotisserie chicken.
