We wake under fluorescent skin, stamped before the line; the belts don't stop, they pull you in, and call it work, call it design. He blesses hooks and stainless drains, the sermon smells of blood; we shuffle past the glass and chains where bodies turn to mud. Hold still, don't flinch — the floor remembers more than we do; one mouth, one want, and the room leans in to view. Carved for hunger, made to bite — what we call order stays up at night; carved for hunger, marked and sold — what they fed us turns hard and cold. One man won't touch the hanging slab, won't swallow what they prize; he moves like guilt in work boots, drab, with the whole room in his eyes. He counts the names he sends below, can't wash the red from his hands; the last mercy he can know is grief that doesn't stand. A shake, a doubt — one fault in the feed; one spark inside the meat-factory, one thing they can't concede. Carved for hunger, made to bite — what we call order stays up at night; carved for hunger, marked and sold — what they fed us turns hard and cold. "Flesh is trade. Consume, obey." Rendered air, and call it grace. No cruelty, only price today; take your place, take your place. But something in us will not kneel, something old still breathes — there's a law in the marrow, a lesson in the rot: you can dress a devourer, but not change what it's got. No more the god, no more the law — no more blessed and sold; if they call meat sacred, break the jaw and leave the ovens cold. Carved for hunger, say it plain — every throne is only bone in chains; holy was the hunger-state... now let that hunger go. The line moves on, the line moves on, beneath the fluorescent dawn; one man lets the gun fall slow... and won't go carrying on. Meat, meat, meat, meat... and something learns to starve.
