A Piece of Meat - By Nirvana Soogreem

Written By: Nirvana Soogreem

Category: Poetry

Competition: Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026

Nirvana Soogreem presents "A Piece of Meat," a striking entry in the Poetry category of the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. This piece resonates with themes of societal expectations and the objectification of women, casting a powerful light on the pressures and injustices faced by women. Nirvana's evocative language brings these issues to the forefront, inviting readers to reflect deeply on the pervasive impact of beauty standards and societal norms.

About the Work

"A Piece of Meat" is a raw and poignant exploration of identity, agency, and resilience. Through vivid imagery and emotional depth, Nirvana Soogreem challenges the reader to confront uncomfortable truths about societal perceptions of women. The poem's intense imagery and candid expressions highlight the struggle for dignity and the yearning for a world where women are valued beyond superficial judgments.

Piece of Meat

Original Submission by Nirvana Soogreem

A Piece of Meat

A piece of meat is who I am,

The butchered piece of a fleshy lamb.

I am the result of a inexplicable and outrageous beauty standards Which manipulate my body in incredulous ways

For men I shall never meet

And people who never stay

But all to whom I am told to impress.

Your body is a preferable wordless way

So leash your beast and become the prey

To a society you'll never greet

And people you'll never please

But all who care how much you eat.

Flaunt your body,

It is a woman's way

But what will they say when I get raped?

It was her clothing, so society says

But the magazines told me to wear a dress.

Flirt with men to get your way

Be submissive and never sway

Watch your figure, slim your waist

Have a pretty smile on your face

But what do I tell the man

Who forced himself onto me?

He didn't take me as just being friendly

And the system will walk him free

Because all the authorities blamed me,

For why did she smile,

Did she bat her eyes?

You know ugly girls her age tell pretty lies.

She was the one that took him by surprise.

Yet all I wanted to do

Was show human kindness through

A simple smile, a casual gest

Turned to something provocative.

And the victims are always blamed

Always scorned and slandered and shamed

But what if they were listened to,

Helped instead of guilted to,

What if they were heard,

Would women not have a better world?

And did the man really see my flesh

Or was I just a treat,

Was I ever the lamb

Or did he just see a piece of meat?

A piece of meat is all I am

Bright and bleeding on a stand

A runway model, a starving girl,

Suck in your stomach before the world.

Let your ribs jut their bones

For all the hungry dogs

And let them slobber over the body you feel barricaded In a fortress of bone and humiliation.

And how pathetic is your need for validation? For a mans eyes, for the mans gaze

I am but a body and a smooth pair of legs

Look at my features

But it's never my eyes

For theirs dissect me between my thighs.

The ravaging and pulling apart

I am the meat of a carcass

Wild animals ripping apart all I ever was

Tearing my skin

Or what it was,

Growling like the predators they are

And I can just lay there and starve.

When I was called

A piece of meat

I was flattered as I thought it meant sustainance Really it means abuse of my sensitive parts, Burning abused like an uncouth substance, Abuse like shame which stains your heart

And makes you cry yourself to sleep after dark. Every time my stomach growls

I know he haunts me there

Because men only like anorexic girls with long, thick hair. And when men don't tear your skin

How you loathe the skin you're in,

You begin to scrub it yourself

To wash off the feelings of everyone else,

Especially on my thighs

How I wish his fingers unprised

Unlatch his blood-suppressing grip

Unleash me from his poising fingertips

Unpeel me from his rotting lips.

Obedience and subservience

Teaches you patterns and observance.

It makes wariness a constant weight.

You feel like an abused house wife

But it’s your body on the plate

He could send you back,

You're too burnt and crispy,

Too charred and dark

And eating something ruined is risky.

He carves through your meat

With his stainless steel teeth

Shredding your tissues

And pulverising you brittle

He says:

There's too much fat in this piece,

Couldn’t you lose a little?

And the stainless steel of his teeth

Melt into words which form the sheath

Of the knife that becomes the fingers

Down your throat which empties your liver.

And even when sweat drains off you

And saliva dehumanises the brains of you

He stabs at the meat and barely eats

Because his mouth longs for the tenderness of other treats. The butter, you lacklustre

The juiciness you’ll never muster.

You'll never be the lean slab of lamb

And you'll always eat off the palm of his hands Still cut yourself to fit in a mould to please him, You’ll still gag and wretch and ask for a reason. It's not you, per say, your meat isn't as pink

When your head is reeling and you're clutching the sink. You’ll just never have a big enough breast.

But I hurt myself to give you my best.

She just has the thickness that you lack

Yet everyday I arch my back

Over a filthy toilet bowl

With a stained and tattered cover

While you drool and eat the meat of another. The irony is, you glutinous fool,

Your meat is tender so your mouth doesn’t gruel You are the man, of course you don’t chew,

I made sure my meat was boneless for you, Yet when a girl with refined ribs

A defined jawline and limbs like sticks

You’re the very animal that gnaws on it.

I've made and unmade myself in violent ways Just to get a bare ounce of your praise

Some butchered meat on a butcher’s scale But it's not the butcher’s knives which impale, It is the men that buy me, just for my weight The fatless parts which fuel their erotic fates. We hang like meat on racks to await

The endless claims of a man’s tastes.

Whether he asks with money

Or thrusts payment to your face

The meat you have feels so displaced.

We are not animals grazing, longing to be chased Or trapped to bleed to eat

Between your decaying teeth.

And I have flesh and meat on my bones

I have the same epithelium human coat

I have blood as red and liquid as yours

So why is my body the piece of meat,

Why my hands the hands of whores,

Why when I smile at a man

It’s the beginning of the end

Of my permission and my choice

My rights and my consent.

A piece of meat,

But aren't we all?

A loving heart is the only piece of meat

I wanted to be at all.

When you hold my hands

Don't you feel the warmth,

The pulse of life with womanly worth?

Or do your fingers have receptors like that of a tongue That taste raw flesh and urge the sensing of blood Which makes hunting like a tiger

And I merely accept my fate

For I cannot fight beneath the mass of your weight.

Your innumerable and masculine “women hate” When I told you I didn't want to have your way.

I could not pry your hands off my battling body

And I could not scrape the insides out of me that you carved, I could not bear the pain of your thrusts

And I could not take the beating for me to hide my scars. I cowered beneath you like I did when you bled me. And I was forced to obey you when you said I must be hid. I barely believed you when you said you’d love me But you beat me until I did.

How does he expect the gaping organ between my legs To feel less raw and rubbed and bloody?

How can he be so oblivious that he ruined

A child’s body?

He denatured me so unintmately

In an act so romanticised and heavenly

To create life, but he chose his sacrifice

And he chose to kill the child in me.

My body was a flower before it became sullen,

His fingers creased my petals and his tongue sucked my pollen, He left me sobbing when he dispersed his seed, And threw me down when he heard my hoarse, broken pleas.

All my other girls don’t pester me.

Shutup, girl, no one hears those pleas.

Fuck your shrieking, and ugly tears,

It’s always the man the media always believes.

Your body belongs in a man’s hands,

Keep yourself starving for their eyes to scan.

You’re a piece of meat and don’t you forget it,

Quit your squirming or you’ll fucking regret it.

Your worth is fate predetermined by your weight, So at least look stunning, sprawling on my plate. You are made for sex, you useless girl,

You’re a shameful, painful, and sexy girl.

When pretty girls disobey they will be punished

So shut your mouth, girl,and let me finish.

So I shut my mouth and closed my eyes,

Trying not to feel dehumanised,

And I felt his body murdering mine

Like a cruel uprooting of my soul and dignity,

My self-respect gone despite my body’s rigidity

Attempting to reject him, soldiering to defy him Failing, frailing, because I can't deny him

No matter how hard my body is trying,

I can no longer bear fighting.

I tasted blood on my tongue

From clenching my jaw

And I can’t bear this pain anymore.

My body is shattering and I'm being ignored.

Authorities, girl, they never listen

No one will take pity into account,

For when they look at a slut before them

And think of nothing else.

And the media pays your lies validation,

Publicity for a day,

Then all the evidence

Eventually it just goes away.

Such a naive girl, with such a pretty face,

It’s obvious that she’d get raped?

That's how the headlines will justify it

Why would you try to deny it?

Just be submissive now,

And just accept your fate.

I am a girl, I cry.

I am dry and scarred and scratched inside

Tears are the only hands that comfort my contorted face Yet even they freeze and dry in place.

They fall silently and displaced

And salt is all I taste.

My body was a temple and now it is waste.

Everyone will leave you eventually, sugar

Meat is only fresh for a while,

So keep up the rosiness on your cheeks

And for goodness sake, feign a smile.

No one wants a girl all done up inside

So wipe those tears from your eyes,

And keep your body in good shape,

So you’ll stay a sexful prize.

A piece of meat,

But I‘m more bones,

My hearts an organ too

But there no one goes,

You touch my intimate areas

But neglect the most intimate of all,

So before you grope me, you vile animal,

Ask me my name,

And why I never looked at you at all.

The blood in my heart flows naturally

But the blood he shed is superficial.

I want to peel him out of me

But his mark in me is official.

I want to resist

I want to exist

But my arms give no more

Keep your back to the floor

My body's given up

Hide your face when im on top

My legs bend and ache

You're my biggest mistake

Im being used like a

Bloody piece of meat

On a cold iron tray.

And when he was done I wanted to run

Into the arms of someone safe,

But with his fluid and my blood still streaming down my legs, I was overcome by an inexplicable shame.

I scalded my body in the shower,

But gently dabbed my skin,

I winced in the numbness of normal pain,

Incomparable to the pain of him.

I stop over my opened organ, my flower, now a scab I couldn’t bring myself to clean it,

To touch it again would drive me mad.

I knew my hands were shaking,

They still do as I write,

Because it wasn’t me who stained my childhood, It was one strange man, on one random night.

His words echoed through me,

The only thing in the hollow canals in my distant mind. I throw up my hands in desperation,

And then give up the fight.

To bear the brunt

To pay the price

And I know they do not see me,

For when they are blinded to the girl

They just see a piece of meat.

-Nirvana

About the Competition

The Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026, organized by Hashtag Kalakar, is a celebration of diverse voices and narratives from across the globe. It provides a platform for writers to express their creativity and engage with global audiences, fostering a community of literary excellence and cultural exchange.

Thank you, Nirvana Soogreem, for your compelling contribution, "A Piece of Meat," to the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. Your work challenges us to reflect on critical societal issues, and we are honored to feature your voice in this international celebration of creativity.

About Hashtag Kalakar

Hashtag Kalakar is a creative platform dedicated to providing artists, writers, singers and other creative talents with opportunities to showcase their work and reach wider audiences through competitions, features and creative initiatives.