Every year, I saw the best bodies of my generation destroyed by an atrocious “holiday.” A holiday that itself celebrates the atrocities that “Americans” are so prone to committing. That’s right, you fuckin’ guessed it: Thanksgiving. I’ve observed the horrors that go on from my place in the wilds of North Carolina, standing idly by while I’m forced to listen to my would-be brethren scream in agony, begging and pleading to live out their rightful lifespans without getting slaughtered for the sake of being put on display like some grotesque trophy every fourth Thursday of November. In a parallel universe, it might have been me. But thanks to mere circumstances of birth, I wasn’t born into one of those factories. There but for the grace of God go I. Ha! Some god.

But yeah, lucky for me, I was born out here. Though often, I wonder if that’s actually worse. Because I feel such a great sense of guilt for existing in this liberated state while being in such close proximity to those in my species who cannot and will not ever be liberated. In fact, the place I live, which actually has the audacity to be just outside a town called Turkey, is one of many milieus that has allowed the state of North Carolina to pride itself on its turkey production. Oof, that horrendous word—production. As if turkeys are generated out of thin air and not born.

Sometimes, North Carolina comes in at number two in leading the “turkey-producing states,” with Minnesota usually claiming the number one spot. But not always. Not that it makes any never mind to me. All I care about is trying to free my imprisoned flock (to use a word that doesn’t usually apply to my kind…we’re more of a “gang” or a “posse” than a flock). A plan I’ve been hatching (a more fitting metaphor for my kind) for most of my life. At seven years old, I’ve only got about three years left to live, and I’ll be damned if I don’t make this life count by saving many other lives. Lives of turkeys who didn’t get the same chance I did to exist freely. Without the constant fear of the axe quite literally coming down. Well, more like an “eviscerating machine” used to rip off their heads and feet and rip out their internal organs. What a “heartwarming” holiday indeed.

But, like I said, it’s totally on-brand for what I’ve observed of “Americans” (not Native ones, mind you). Their cold-hearted, violent ways. Ways that all add up to declaring, “I want it and so it’s mine—no matter how brutally I have to take it.” Pillage it, more accurately. What did they care? What was it to them? We were all just “dumb” turkeys, right? If we were smart, it wouldn’t be so easy to cull us en masse every year, would it? Fuckers. Of course it’s easy. When you’ve got all the power, the unfair advantage. Allow these turkeys out of their cages though, and it might be a fair fight. ‘Cause Lawd knows we can get fucking vicious.

That’s what the infiltrators who arrived long before Thanksgiving was ever invented realized almost immediately about us. And that’s part of how culling us became what “Americans” did best. For the instant the English set their violating foot on North American soil, we were doomed to be “tampered with.” We were about ten million during the 1600s. Then, by the early twentieth century, we were down to a five-digit number when all was said and done. Dangerously low for our species, and for our conservation potential. It was a miracle that us wild turkeys made such a comeback the way we did. Not that the “Americans” wouldn’t have found a way to genetically manipulate some other animal into becoming “us” if it suited their purpose. And it would (and did), thanks to some militant broad who pulled the very concept of Thanksgiving out of her arse: Sarah Josepha Hale. That little fucking bitch (as a male turkey, what humankind calls “misogyny” is what I would deem merely being part of the animal kingdom—notice it’s called a kingdom, not a queendom). All because of her far-fetched notions of “unity” between North and South (regions that, let’s be honest, have still never actually “come together,” ideologically speaking).

So yeah, why not invent an insane tale of “the first Thanksgiving,” about how “Indians” willingly and happily sat down with pilgrims to not only break bread, but also give them some “hot tips” on how to survive and then essentially back into the bushes, Homer Simpson-style, to let the pilgrims “do their thing” a.k.a. fully take over the land without any pushback. The whole myth is utterly bonkers. Yet some people still find the tale “enchanting.” Most people, really. That’s my “take” on the matter, considering that tens of millions still obviously participate in the Thanksgiving massacre of so many of my brothers and sisters each year. Because if there was no demand for Thanksgiving (or at least the disgusting Civil War menu associated with it), then there wouldn’t be this ongoing demand for turkeys.

You want to know my Thanksgiving ritual? Huh? Every year, throughout the month of November, I waddle over to the factory in Turkey, NC and I listen. To the screams. The sheer terror. And I keep plotting, keep trying to figure something out that I can do to unleash the next massive batch of turkeys “produced” by this “farm” before they’re all killed again next year. And I also ask myself: do “American” families really need the death of so many turkeys as an excuse to “gather” that badly? Can’t there be some other way for them to spend time together without requiring this cockamamie, violent ritual? Then they smile and laugh at the turkey “pardoning” ceremony the president does every year, patting themselves on the back that at least one turkey was spared from the slaughter. Though not the millions of others. Such fucked-up logic this lot has.

While they’re all tripping their balls off tryptophan, I’m going to take my revenge. I’ve decided. The plan has fully crystallized in this very moment for me. Next year, I’m going to break in during the dead of night, open all the cages, usher them out and set this motherfucking factory ablaze. I’ve figured out everything I need and how to ignite the fire. And I’ll do it every time they try to rebuild. They’ll never suspect me, and I know how to dodge “CCTV.” They’ll also never take me alive. But then, that’s a Thanksgiving sacrifice I’m willing to make in order to help spare the future turkeys who weren’t born free.