**Content warnings: themes of hypersexualisation and graphic allusions to physical abuse.**
“It just really annoys me,” it really does, and I slump forward over the blankets, head down, forearms resting parallel like long, meagre chicken breasts beneath fluorescent grocery store lights,
beneath plastic stretched thin, and atop bloodied styrofoam,
ready to be ripped apart and pummeled, and chopped, and burnt, and shredded, then, finally–
consumed.
At once smooth pink flesh and gooey white tendons– yes, I am the flesh and I am the strings
and I lay on the chopping board
beneath the gourmet gaze,
tasting of salmonella, somewhat salvageable to some.
To whom does the slick plump flesh appeal to,
and whom do the sticky tendons disgust,
sinking their fingers into the pink firmness,
tearing apart, devouring; myself, thrown on the pan and thrown on the plate,
thrown down the gullet yet unable to satiate?
19 years ago, Natalie Co arrived on the shores of Vancouver atop a seashell, inspiring Botticelli to paint The Birth of Venus. She likes cats, Phoebe Bridgers, and the moon.