Chicken legs and rice. The leg sits in the far upper corner of my plate, getting colder with each passing minute. I’ll eat the rice. I eat the rice. I ate the rice. Not a single grain left. There sits the chicken leg. My mom gave me the smallest one but it’s still the leg. With skin, meat, and a bone filled with marrow. Fried skin- one side crispy. Once I pull it off, the other side is soft and wobbly. Almost slimy. I can’t chew and swallow it easily. My teeth won’t break it down and so, a blob of fatty skin remains in my mouth.
My eyes well up with tears and I gag while trying to swallow chicken skin. Mom doesn’t like when I gag. Skin finally goes down and now it’s time to eat the “meat” on the leg. I pull at it and my face fills with fear. Dread. Disgust.. Mom doesn’t like me making faces at the table. But no one is around anymore because they finished eating while I was trying to chew skin.
There is cartilage on one particular section of meat. It’s always on the same spot of the chicken leg. And I can’t chew that either. How can anyone eat cartilage? It makes me instantly cry. When I move the meat, there’s veins. Slimy, skinny veins that stretch as I pull the meat off the bone. I start to cry. Again. Mom says to hurry and eat the chicken. It’s been an hour. It’s cold and it doesn’t taste good. It didn’t taste good when it was hot. She turns off the lights so i can’t see the veins. But I have 20/20 vision even through tears.
I don’t want to eat the veins or cartilage. I take small bites but I cry and gag each time. And I know how the bone can be broken and the marrow can be sucked out of it. I don’t want to eat that either. Finally mom tells me to throw the leg away.
I am an adult now and I don’t eat chicken legs. Sometimes I don’t eat dinner. I still eat my rice. I like rice. And I eat with a light on.
(This will later become “The tragic tale of the zombie who didn’t like meat and couldn’t survive”…)