The Meat, the Bones, the Skin

Red—marbled, seared steaks raised me. Desire served in thick cuts. Blood still warm in the center, something primal not meant to be named but always devoured. No questions, just plates. Heavy—thick porcelain, rimmed in gold like something sacred. They arrived steaming, polished to a shine, mirroring a face back at you, distorted by the steam. Each one carried its own silence. A glistening steak cut too large for the appetite, flanked by obedient sides. Mashed potato afterthoughts. The meat bleeding in. No one said a word. The knives were sharp, the rules were sharper. Finish your plate. Even the parts that made you sick. Especially those.

Appetite was discipline. Chew what was given, even when it was lodged like a backward prayer—raw, fibrous, insisting its shape on the way down. Not choking, not quite. A ghost in the esophagus, pulsing with memory, humming against the bone, forgotten, trying to unbury itself. It wasn’t the food that hurt. It was the force. The way something could be pressed past your will—flavorless, heavy, unnamed. You swallowed because you were told to. Because the refusal felt more dangerous than the taste.

Bacon, ham, or sausage sides—pick your slice of swine. Each promising a different sizzle, salt, and silencing echo of something once alive. Choose your pig, your inheritance of hunger.

Baloney folded like love letters in lunchboxes. Raw hot dogs straight from the fridge, slick and secret. Fourth of July roasts with air like fat on fire.

Pork tenderloin trussed in bacon, disguising the bitterness of thawed spinach and compromise.

Pernil for polished pride, the illusion of elegance. An extra freezer—half-packed, humming in the garage, full of farm-raised backup. Just in case an appetite should strike.

Salty bones that splinter just like your mama warned. Bellies, rinds, and gristled scraps—until guilt licks your tongue with the bitter irony that barnyard hogs reek of syrup in the sun. Sweet rot and innocence, reduced. Their skin, tough as worn leather, specked with wiry black hairs like punctuation on a sentence you regret reading aloud.

The great poultry rebellion. Dry, defiant, and clean. Choosing blandness just to taste freedom.

Weekly chicken nuggets, predictable as clock hands. The occasional tender basket—breaded, safe, forgettable. Wings in barbecue, garlic, and mild, eaten methodically. Poking past the two-boned ones to avoid the thin, blistered skin it died inside.

Once a year, the ritual: baste the bird in orange juice, lime, and beer. Taste the skin when no one’s watching—savor the guilt. Dry the wishbone on a windowsill. Let it harden like a secret. Grab the bigger end. Pull and pray for something more than meat.

Then the silence between meals. Ritual without witnesses. Binge, purge. Devour, deny. The discipline reversed. Two fingers offered as atonement—gentle in practice, violent in meaning. Not to nourish, but to erase. To take back what was taken.

Skip breakfast. Lie at dinner.

Hunger became its own language—one no one else could speak. Abstinence in absence of virtue. Control dressed up like discipline. A war waged quietly in fluorescent-lit bathrooms and pantry shadows. Food wasn’t food. It was confession, punishment, reward.

Chewing just to taste. Spitting it out to prove you can want without swallowing.

Return of the meat, now dressed in secrecy. Shaved lamb tucked in gyros, eaten on sidewalks in borrowed cities. Slow-stewed venison, rich with game and guilt. Pepperoni curled at the edges of midnight pizza slices, salami pressed between rye and regret. Prosciutto and pancetta, paper-thin, draped over figs and melon—sweet meets salt in hushed hotel rooms.

The global sampling, an international meat tray of affairs. Each bite a passport stamp. Each taste a hunger that didn’t ask permission.

Then, she introduced me to seafood. The hunger quieted. No longer silenced, it was finally heard.

Softer in body, harder in shell. A different kind of invitation. One that didn’t come easy.

All that work, all them bones.

The first bite was worth the effort. Worth the boats that dared to troll deep waters. Worth the traps, the nets, the mess of necessary entanglements. Worth the claws, the fins, the teeth—worth the eyes that looked right at you while you chewed.

It tasted alive. Not packaged. Not processed. Not fed to you.

With her, it wasn’t indulgence. It wasn’t rebellion.

It was revelation.

I wasn’t hungry. I was fed.

Now there were shrimp and sea scallops wrapped in basil leaves, skewered between red onion petals and slivers of peach—sweet, sharp, tender.

Sizzled over an open flame, turning sea creatures into sensual offerings, smoky and delicate. Pearls of joy tucked in rainbow shells—earth-toned, indigo, opal—waiting to be found, not taken. Greedy with wonder,

I searched for them.

Consumed to the point of obsession, this new hunger overtook me like a mermaid on borrowed legs, blade in hand, fire in her heart, carving her way through the world with a fishful of vendetta and no appetite for shame.

Squid, conch, octopus—ancient creatures pulled from the deep. Tender only if treated right. Turtle soup, optional, but whispered like a dare. Sharks taken just for the texture of their fins. Crabs hunted for the sweet ache of their claws.

Seafood demanded reverence—so intriguing it needed a new language, so high-maintenance it came with its own set of tools, tiny forks and silver crackers made for careful excavation.

And the butter—my god, the butter—pooling with citrus, garlic, and heat, alchemized in a ramekin. Whatever it took to coax each hidden ounce of flavor into surrender.

But you had to be willing to boil things alive. To face the steam, the shrieks, the price of hunger that sometimes cost more than you could say aloud—marked only as MKT, a quiet nod to the unspeakable toll.

Yet still, the meat—so soft, so yielding. Cooked or raw, it never objected. Intoxicating indifference. An absence of resistance mistaken for invitation.

There were bones—countless, delicate bones. Some fused into shells so perfect they became armor. Structure masquerading as fragility. Even the skin offered something profound. A dish served inside itself. A poetic return to its own body.

And then, like static, the chase dulled. The flavor dimmed to a low hum where thrill once lived. An empty buzzing. Signals crossed. Meaning lost somewhere between the wanting and the getting. I kept chewing, but the taste never returned.

No hands on my plate. No hands at my throat. No offering, no taking. Just the knowing.

I wasn’t starving, I was just holding the fork. Not to stab or prove, not to beg or undo. Just to feed myself. To taste without conquest. To fill without feasting. To hold hunger in my own hands—and answer it.