Depression Diagnosed the Vegan
I woke up sliding off the couch from a second nap
in my parents’ living room, well after lunchtime
to a quiet made by a vacant home,
by the departure of family members for work and school;
I could not remember when I last ate,
so I squirmed like a legless thing to the kitchen,
opened the fridge and scanned the uncooked contents,
knowing I could not peel, cut, or stand over a stove,
I pulled from the second shelf the heavy half
of a roasted chicken, lifted the glass lid and stared
at the leftover frame of a body that once lived;
I began to strip the skin as I sat there in the cold gap
between the door and crisper, clawing the meat
and folding ribbons of flesh into my mouth
with the speed of someone eager for bones;
I did not care for taste or rights, or to pause
to watch my own horror, licking the fat and muscle
of a creature I promised would never touch my lips,
I cared only for the frantic desire to end
an expanding hunger, though once I noticed
the ripped tissue of what I had picked piled beneath
my long nails, staining my fingertips with the smell
of seared breast, I thought of the vulture,
the bare-necked beast disgraced for feasting on carcass,
whose acid is so remarkably corrosive, it can dine on rot,
on animal long decayed, on carrion so rancid
it would poison any other bird; that day,
and for several years after, I yearned to be that scavenger,
to tear away at my own animal, this most putrid monster
whose consumption was killing the others;
it would be okay if a little blood always dripped
from my talons, when I could still fly away unaffected,
pleased to know it was dissolving like an iron nail in my stomach
Mehrnoosh Torbatnejad has appeared in the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, The Missing Slate, Painted Bride Quarterly, and is forthcoming in Silk Road Review. She is the poetry editor for Noble / Gas Qtrly, and a Best of the Net, Pushchart Prize, and Best New Poets nominee. She currently lives in New York where she practices matrimonial law.