EAT THE TURTLE GODDAM IT

A man I loved 
ate a turtle
And both those are half truths

He was 19 
and he got it, alive, from a food market in China.
He tried to feed it everything he could think of- 
from turtle food to beetles to dried shrimp-
and the turtle wouldn’t eat.

He got it a plastic tub and a rock to climb on, 
But all it would do is hide under the rock.

It went on like this for three weeks
the turtle ate nothing, did nothing 
and the man I loved (however briefly) did not want to waste food or suffering 
so he killed the turtle and cooked it and ate it with his roommate for dinner 
and it tasted really good, he said

I pressed and pressed for details
“How did you feel just before you killed it?”
“What did you cook it in?”
I was crying and he got defensive
“It was going to starve! I got it at a food market! There was no difference between ordering a burger at a restaurant and eating the turtle!”

I said, you’re right 
I said, I get it
I understand this is a story 
about mercy

But I wouldn’t stop crying and he was upset. 
I didn’t know how to explain, 
I’m crying because I envy you, 
because I want to be like you, 
because I want to be able, like you,
to forsake something I tried to feed and it wouldn’t eat, 
to discard something I tried to care for and it wouldn’t let me

To take something I couldn’t salvage
and twist its neck and chop off its shell with one great wack, and throw it in a pan with a nice sauce, and eat it.

Gal Rubin is a 27-year-old medical student and peace activist from Israel.  She’s spent the past 6 years traveling and studying, exploring San Francisco to Brazil to Berlin to London to Taiwan to Argentina, and finally, Oxford, UK as a Rhodes scholar.  Over the past three years she has been trying to find humanity, beauty and poetry in the face of brutality that never relents. Months ago, something led her back to Israel, where she’s been grappling with the same questions, and trying, very hard, to create hope and grow it.