Dreams
By Heather Leughmyer
An Animal Rights Poem from All-Creatures.org

Dreams
By Heather Leughmyer

Vandalized like property
Spray-paint down her spine
Her back defaced with letters
The color of red wine.

Regarded as an object
Like an old, discarded toy
Seven letters seal her fate
Those letters spell DESTROY.

What evil thing must she have done
To be treated with such scorn -
Her murder predetermined
The day that she was born?

Intricately engineered
Manufactured to produce
When her body’s been expended
She’s no longer any use.

She must have dreamed
Of a better place
Desired to be free
But this tiny metal nightmare
Is all she’ll ever see.

She’ll only view the outside world
Through slats before her slaughter
Her prison hastily restocked
With someone else’s daughter.

I know she dreamed of a better place
I dream now for the others
For sisters, brothers, fathers, sons
For daughters and their mothers.

Vandalized like property
Spray-paint down her spine
Her back defaced with letters
The color of red wine.

Regarded as an object
Like an old, discarded toy
Seven letters seal her fate
Those letters spell DESTROY.

What evil thing must she have done
To be treated with such scorn -
Her murder predetermined
The day that she was born?

Intricately engineered
Manufactured to produce
When her body’s been expended
She’s no longer any use.

She must have dreamed
Of a better place
Desired to be free
But this tiny metal nightmare
Is all she’ll ever see.

She’ll only view the outside world
Through slats before her slaughter
Her prison hastily restocked
With someone else’s daughter.

I know she dreamed of a better place
I dream now for the others
For sisters, brothers, fathers, sons
For daughters and their mothers.