Self-Destruction as a Defense Mechanism

A pink hunk of coil-tailed ham waddles in its' pen to a patch of mud.
It flips, flops down, rubs the brown muck about its' body and chortles contentedly.
Why not stand above this stinking pit, marred with fleas and rotting shit?
Why not trot on past the watered hole, why lay in it to have a roll?

So long as the hogs trod the Earth these pigs live in dirt.
Why work to ascend in the press of the pen though thou wert wort?
A sow may stand now above the topsoil but her sweetness will be drained from her mashed remains.

Each heaving, heavy-breathing boar-spawn is squeezed out with feces, carries excrement as it lives, and decomposes when its' cells succumb to the fecundity of hungry fungi, bacteria, molds, and other agents ever-present.
Why then not embrace the waste?

Swine line up to dine on their dying, leftover edibles from man's tables, and beat goats famed omnivorousness by choosing to eat that at which a settled doe won't bleat.
Rather than endure the bestial stress of this savage contest let's look to the swine frolicking in filth.
See their smiles, hear their laughter, ignore the smell.
If a body is like a shell for a soul, a cup for a liquid, a part for the whole, an OS for a computer, then it can become a cell for an ingrate.
Then let madness: relishing the horrific, be these piggies defense.

Haunted

Chords resonate then calm.
Stimulus stops yet the mind still hears.
Quiet can't snuff a psalm.
Music turns a mind: it steers.

A gorgeous note long ago left is reread, as the engraved name on a tombstone where pollen has blown and vines have grown, so its' missed musical syllable may sound afresh if only mentally, in memory.

Relief

Sunlight washes the shoals seeping heat into my soles which bound above shells'n shale.
Beach-breath tousles straws stuck in sunk star-emblazoned plastic cups.
Laughter lifts from lungs to face, escaping into the ether, waving into space.
Monochrome bikinis scarcely contain tanned and oiled swells, jostling for freedom throughout a game of volleyball.
Jokes, sketches, numbers, poetry, and initials graffiti the single bathroom stall.
I rush to mightily hose down the toilet with kidney-filtered Sprite.
A weight leaves me.
Everything's right.

Release

A slab of slate cleft from the cliff's face fell and grabbed his arm.
His beard itches, sweat stings his eyes with salt, and sandy air dries his throat.
Traffic to the trapped arm slows. It tingles as the supply of blood stops.
With a terrific thrashing he attempts to wrench his elbow out from under the rock.
His planned trip's travel has been road blocked.
With what little strands of moisture his saliva glands spare he prepares to wet his throat and call for help.
He swallows.
He yells and the voice echoes, taking on the tone of stone, then he wallows in this failure.
Wind blows pebbles loose off the horizontal menhir.
He imagines his fingers aren't trapped as they were and tugs on his arm.
Bare skin tears, wears from scraping, bleeds, splats the tan humanweight with thumbs-width circles of red, paling in the sun.
He rests.
He unzips his jacket, unclothing as much as possible.
He tests for feeling and finds he can't sense the invisible hand he hopes is underneath the landslide.
Something hopping amongst the poppies perks his ears.
Someone else!
Hurting his thirsty throat, he roars,
"over here!" and
"I'm stuck!"
He's caught up in hollering. It takes awhile for him to calm down, his smile to fade, and the indifference of the desert's sounds to soothe him.