Things a Vegan Will Never Understand

We ate attractive bloody steaks you speared on the dirty coal grill. We sat around the table, all civilian-like, ripping seasoned meat off the bones of animals that farmers gaze at lovingly, lonely, as they pull gently on their weird, big tits.

We sat around the table like a family with no blood between us, exchanging looks ranging from disgust to an ashamed sort of fascination. You’re next to me and your fingernails are caked with bitter automobile oil. You scrubbed before you sat down but only so much came off.

The tan skin, the black oil, the red sauce. The brown steak and the white bones. The tearing, the sucking, and the satisfied, slow chew. The odd sort of knowledge that you’re dirty, sexy, and nobody else agrees. I lick the spicy, thick sauce off my fingers and proclaim to you with real young eyes that I need a cigarette. You will supply.

You talk about girls my age with your friends; you twist your fingers in an attempt to hold in the lewd movements, the slight and sick gestures. Girls who own the skirts I own, the haircuts I once had, the dry kind of humor only the best of boys get. But there’s something about them that just isn’t about me.

I spend time here; I devote secrets to the listening walls and understanding record players, recording microphones. I spend life here, and they show up in small black cars, park haphazardly, walk by without talking, and won’t even listen to your strange little band. Won’t even look over when you’re coyly telling jokes to the gaunt hippie behind the record store counter. Won’t spend five dollars to see your band when she knows you’d play for her for free. Won’t listen to your crackling vinyl records and try really, honestly hard to understand what the hell you’re talking about. Try really honestly hard to hear the amazingness of the part you keep playing over and over.

No, she just wears her thin and moving skirt in the bright fall sun, she just moves the way you wish every pretty young girl would move, right in front of you. I have broken and snapped my ankles trying to perfect this secret saunter, this wonderful walk, and now I am crippled, sitting next to you at the ash-burned dining room table.

We are eating medium well steaks from the grill out back, the oily, old grill. There’s something about a grill that, no matter how many times you scrub the grates, the oil and deposits of dried slick sauce won’t wash off. Like a civilian, I tear a dangling shred of meat off of a burned sharp bone with my very young teeth. You look over. You smile. You light a cigarette; chew the smoke. My plate is clean, empty, just traces of blood and salt left now,

But I am still so hungry.