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I may be a murderer, but I am meticulous.

We all have our callings, and this – the slicing and dicing and curing of human meat – is mine.

I make it an art work, a vocation. I am careful not to leave forensic clues, but I am also tidy by nature. They will not catch me due to a lack of precision or care. I am not to fall due to haphazard and emotional displays. If they catch me, if they ever do, they will marvel at my professionalism. They will wonder why I did not make money from this.

“How can you make money from your art, really?” I will say. “It is a calling, not a way to put food on the table.”

And no, it does not provide food to my table in a more literal, direct or bloody sense. Not mine anyway. I am no cannibal, and have never tasted human flesh. Though I am not sure what those who traffic in my spoils may do with this. I simply provide the flesh and bone, properly drained and cured. I am not interested beyond that.

I have had my fill, you see, of pain and shock and misery. I have had my fill.

Like a surgeon I have cut into and ceased life upon life. God makes life, and perhaps only god’s children can truly take life. Then I am god’s child indeed, answering his call.

Make of it what you will. You eat the flesh of animals. You kill the life of vegetation just as it blooms in the field. Everything in this universe kills. It is a killing machine. So I am a mere, humble player in the game, and I seek only to be meticulous and knowing in my acts.

I do not go through life half asleep, unaware of the rampant destruction I cause just to keep my own blood flowing, my own gut nourished. I know, and own and welcome what I am.

Do you?

(c) Helen M Valentina 2017