Veal you open your fucking eyes

We are babies
babies,
a few days old
that’s all
lost in your sodding vacuum
nobody to call
mothers lowing somewhere
but I am all alone
the bastards how they throw me
I have a broken bone

already I am injured
what’s to become of me
I am truly innocent
and somehow this can’t be
life
not life, for goodness sake
those 9 months deep inside
the work of the creator
and all of its denied

since I was born
into your light
the darkness of your care
drained down on me
and startled me
I am now so aware

this place is really
awful
there is no love around
only ugliness and egregious treatment
that I’ve found
they shout at us
they drag us, they kick us
its not fair
it hurts, it so hurts
this is awful
is nobody aware?

I am bleeding from my nostrils
I am foaming from my gum
I am aching every muscle
will, somebody come
and rescue me
and help me
that’s my earnest plea
but these vile trolls
in their dungarees
they come and wallop me

where is my dear mother
why did she go a way
I so much want to taste her milk
I feel so weak today
I cannot walk
my legs are frail
if this is life on earth
humans why do you do this to us
and straight after birth

oh god know, he is dragging me by one leg
through the shed
the concrete is scratching my soft skin
oh god he’s hit my head
my eye is really bulging
I feel my time has come
a few days of this torment
there must be, is there some

one around to help me
we are all in the same boat
torn away from our mother
and hardly still afloat
anguish all is anguish
I am frightened I’m in pain
and all they do is hurt me
over and over again

Now its to the veal crate
this mechanism bare
they chain me by my neck
I can’t move anywhere
I can’t sit down
I cannot lay
my legs are burning, I
all I want is to close my eyes
and just lay down and die

but they feed me slops of creamy mess
and hit and kick me too
there’s just no let up from this torture
what am I going to do
how can a baby suffer this
why does a baby need
to come into this fucking world
and have to fucking bleed

these frustrated trolls
are all over us
I cannot close my eyes
and drift off to another place
no one can realise
how bad it is how sad it is
for little calves like me
who suffer as it get tougher
why can we just get free

18 weeks of this torment
I am really sick inside
anaemia and weakening
and just so mortified
how can any human be as inhuman
as they are
these torturer’s this CAFO camp
our spirits they just scar

we hear a great truck rumbling
outside, we know our time
is up
the chains are torn away
I cannot even climb
to my feet just 18 weeks
and I’m already lame
so I’m literally thrown
across the yard
so everything’s the same
and tossed head first into the truck
I know my time has come
actually I need to go
you see I am not that dumb

I know what’s going to happen
this dairy gave me hell
I stood there in my excrement
and everywhere did smell
I was burning from my urine
my wounds were festering too
maggots had come to sample me
that’s what maggots do

remember I am a baby
born in a human world
where hell is all around us
and in your shit we’re hurled

its the journey to the slaughterhouse
in the wagon all piled high
every bend and every stop
we are thrown, we slide, we die
we are treated just like sacks of
I don’t know just sacks of coal
no water food or even care
and of course we have no goal

we just want out
we just want out
just do it, kill us, please
we arrive and we’re tossed and thrown
and each groan
everyone agrees
we herded into the killing room
and we’re stunned well some are
I
have not been stunned
but I’m hoisted with those who have been stunned
on high

and the trolls are here with their bloody knives
and our throats are being slashed
we are rocking it is shocking
on the gantry chains we’re bashed

the world we leave is upside down
the blood we leave is ours
our life force is departing
we are losing all our powers
this senseless life we came to
we voiceless we now tell
we veal calves will be eaten
and inside you we will swell

for the maggots and the evil
and the tumult is within
all that tepid slop
we were forced to swallow
from the bin
I hope in death
those people
who enjoy us
on their plate
will remember when the cancer
rips into them
it’s too late