PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Act I: Vegan at the Evening Gathering

All eyes on me when I try to decline politely.

Thank you but I've already eaten.

Eat! Eat!

I'm just not feeling great.

Eat! Eat!

I have an allergy.

Eat! Eat!

I appreciate it but actually I'm vegan.

A hush falls.

Now I'm a thousand-faced, light-reflecting disco ball!

Within ten minutes of walking in the door,

I'm a glitter-glimmer-right-back-atchya disco ball!

I'm an empathy whore.

You'd prefer the convenient distortions of a funhouse mirror.

Rear ends shift in creaky wooden chairs.

My presence has nudged all the elbows and all the dark sunglasses have been jostled.

My presence is a picture window installation in the slaughterhouse and the blinds have been raised.

Everyone looks around,

figuring that I'll need an empty basket for my leaflets, my...

propaganda.

I said no thank you to the ham and now

I'm on a talk show, being interviewed, scrutinized, sized up, and dissected.

The same old debate is being rehashed, reviewed, reiterated, and resurrected.

Stop trying to put words in my mouth!

Stop trying to put cheese in my mouth!

Don't act like I'm some Morrissey-PETA hypocrisy apologist!

Don't talk to me like I'm some Whole Foods hipster anthropologist

and you're my freelance psychologist

who suddenly has a degree in nutrition

which you keep folded up

at the bottom of a box of Pop Tarts.

I just wanted to slip in

and out

unnoticed,

quietly eating some of your stale ass green salad-

even the shredded carrots-

which, by the way,

are trash can garnish.

Shredded carrots are the bits that mice piss on and leave behind.

Shredded carrots are the precursor to a monochromatic garbage disposal clog.

Act II: Vegan at the Grocery Store

I'm whistlin' past the graveyard

where mothers and babies

are salted and vacuum sealed,

soul-snuffed,

destined to be a rushed meal

or disregarded, discarded

by a fat American child who decides too late

that he wants macaroni.

The stench of near death in the saltwater

of voyeuristic lobster concentration camps.

I keep smiling and grab a flier.

Sale prices read like obituary details to me:

page after page of cadaver snapshots.

Yeah, my propaganda.

Act III: Vegan at the Bus Stop

Golden arches

taxi, taxi, taxi, taxi whizzing past with blown up photos of

hamburgers

cheeseburgers

pepperoni pizza

beef teriyaki

chicken wings

buffalo wings

all you can eat seafood

steakhouse

got milk?

Tiiime for ice cream!

taco, taco, taco, taco.

Yeah, my propaganda. It must be overwhelming.

I don't have propaganda, a vendetta, or an agenda. I just have broccoli and quinoa and I'm happy to keep them all to myself in my underground hacky sack hippie sweatshop.

Loved your hunting photos, by the way, and those fish you caught.

The pot roast looked like it took hours.

I post a lasagna recipe and it's World War III- then you act like you're the first person ever to tell me a bacon joke.

Not the first but definitely the funniest.

Apologies for the misunderstanding; I wasn't posing a challenge.

At its core

it was just

lasagna.