Deathmeat

So it's been a while...I think I was in a mix between a self induced funk (more recently) and a food eating binge (previously) to make up for trying to figure out what I enjoy.
So since my last post I slaughtered 3 goats and a chicken.
One goat during Eid, I held the blade with the Imam and we did it. The thing is, when he said to stop cutting...we shouldn't have. The goat died miserably, it was still coughing like it was 30 seconds before when it was still whole. It was still full of enough vitality to raise its head and stare back at us.
What do I remember the most that day? The few specks of blood on my hand from the cut
Also the cow I wrote about. Every cow that comes to the slaughter apparently is scared shitless...this one was no exception, there were a few piles right next to after the deed was done.
So much fear, eyes go white, the jerking. I wonder if there really is a humane way to murder. Sanitized meat murder without the danger of eviscerating the corpse.
I am a murderer...yet I don't feel as bad as this terrible piece of prose reflects. I realized I wanted to do it again, by my own hand, and not mess up.
I had my opportunity with two more goats that my Uncle from America bought to slaughter in commemoration of naming his child (why does that sound barbaric in my Western personal lens when it isn't to me). I did the same thing, held the hand with the Imam and did it. Though I should mention that before the deed, I was petting the goats when they were crying, doing my best to calm them down.
And down they went. One, and then the next, slammed head down next to the corpse of the last.
Again, I remember the drops of blood after I said the words.
Death in the name of God...for meat, for life.
This is the pain we must take, inflict, in that we are justified, in fact demanded, to use God's name.
All this killing in the name of God, is right here for livelihood, not for pure murder.
So much of that cow we killed on Eid, and those two goats also that day, they went to the poor. We fed about a third of each animal to the poor.
The burden of humanity is supposedly being a benevolent Shepard in my faith, which seems to be a task that no human is honor bound to keep.
We eat and we eat and we eat, but we forget the consequences of these actions.
I killed a chicken two weeks ago
And I did it wrong, oh God I did it wrong. I was supposed to slit its throat, but I ended up doing the opposite of the first goat and I cut too much to the point where it was beheaded. I held onto to that head so tightly as the rest of the body went away, watching its beak move up and down, knowing it couldn't scream with its body being ripped away by the edge of my blade. I noticed the drops of blood upon my hand
I then skinned the chicken, tearing through was has now become a covering to the "meat". Do you realize how warm meat is? No, because if you're like me, you've only seen meat cut after being defrosted. But meat, flesh, another animal's body, is warm, and as the life leaves the body, so does the warmness flow out. I was then taught how to cut the flesh into meat to cook.
That day I threw up. I'm not sure if it was because of the process, but I felt nauseous.
I hate throwing up, this was the first time this trip. Which is actually great, because 5 years ago I threw up 12 times, 9 of those times in one day.
Ever since then I was in a slump,
But I can't give up can I,
Life is full of so many cruelties for so many other people, that I need to forget the little things that rage inside my head and forget the anger.
I guess this is helping, because right now I'm angry over something else, pretty insignificant in the course of my visit here. But heck, that doesn't mean I should just suppress it as usual. Me not emphasizing that I deserve what I want is a major reason why people don't believe keeping their word is meaningful. But that's loopy, and you probably don't need this seemingly random tangent. Just know that thoughts, no matter how disconnected, are all part of a web, so beautiful, so original that you wouldn't realize that it was a true pattern. It's the best type.