Prose Poems by Jaden Gootjes
By Jaden Gootjes
Ravaged bodies dangle from hooks cutting through thick flesh. Pink skin tainted crimson with blood and intestines. Clumps of organs and entrails decorate concrete corners. I stand before an assembly line style hell, blade in my hand, I cut throats. Red, flat spray spurts from their necks, splattering across my rubber apron and boots. My face is unmoved, my features stale and unwavering. I cut too deep, down to the torso and out falls an embryonic sac, filled with pig fetuses swirling in cold fluid. Purple lumps in place of eyes. Soft tissue in place of hooves. She wasn’t supposed to be this way; I knew this. I wasn’t even sure that it entirely made sense, that my cut was precise enough, deep enough, to exile these fetuses from their mother’s dead womb. Everything pauses around me, the hooked bodies stop moving, my coworkers are gone. It’s just me, blade in my hand, the smell of death and blood and guts and meat swarms my orifices. I look at the gaping belly of the mother. I reach up, heave her body off the thick metal hook. Lay it on the ground, away from the stream of blood hurtling body parts and organs toward a drain. I make a peace sign with my hand, reach down, and shut her open, scared eyes. I cup her round cheek with my hand, feeling a soft breath against my skin. I crawl inside the jagged cavity of her body. It is strangely warm, flesh fuses and closes around me. It is completely dark inside of her; I feel her heart pulse once, twice. I feel myself melt into her body, become her flesh, replace her children; I am the same body, the same breath, the same blood.
She
stands in the clearing beneath a sky dressed in emerald and lime. Her thin neck
gives to small, powerful hips. Lighter splotches where white once dotted are
just fading on the slope of her back. Her legs are long and narrow, cleaved
hooves tucked between beetles and decomposing fauna. Her face is delicate, the
sharp curvature of her skull apparent beneath a trim pelt of sepia fur. Her
eyes are large and black mirrors with dark lashes. I feel a lightness to my
body, a recognition I’ve never felt before, a realization of beauty, of worth,
of innocence, of nature, of blood, of instinct. I unsling the gun from my
chest, place it gently among the trinities and umbrella plants. The flora
closes its grasp on the barrel and the metallic sheen is obscured by leaf
litter and humus as the earth consumes it, hammer first. I face the other side
of the muzzle before dirt fills in the barrel. I shift my gaze back to her; she
does not raise her white tail or flare her nostrils. She glances at me as I
advance towards her, and she lowers her body gracefully, like a girl, to the
forest floor. She curls her front legs under her head and flicks her big,
flower petal ears at me. I step closer, and she does not shy away from my
approach. I move myself, with as much grace as I can manage, to the ground
beside her. I lean back, lay my head on her pulsing stomach. I stare up at the
canopy, at the sun, at the leaves, at the branches. Me, the doe, me, the doe,
me, the doe. I am her son, her brother, her father, her blood. She is my flesh,
my skin, my body.
-
Jaden Gootjes is a Michigan-based poet studying English writing at Northern
Michigan University. She expects to graduate in May 2024 with her B.S. She has
been a dedicated vegan for approximately six years. She is most interested in
themes of feminism, mental illness, and the intersection of animal and human
identity.