The annual massacre of our family has arrived again. Our parents, siblings and relatives are killed for food for the inhumane human beings. We only have three to five months of time together while growing up, and within that time we’ve become immensely close, living together, eating together, spending time together. Yet our breeders violently slaughter us each year as the month of November arrives.

They pretend to give us so much time for socialization by letting us interact and get close to one another, but they don’t tell us the darkest secret: their final plan to slaughter, and even worse, eat us. They never mention how short the time we spend together is going to be, and suddenly, just as we’re enjoying life, it all comes to an end. Literally. This nightmarish time sneaks up on us every year. A rather grim joke in the turkey community is that while October is universally regarded as the “spooky” month, November is what really scares us.

Dhansgibing Toorkie, a young turkey who has survived the annual slaughter, expresses the terror she felt during that time of the year. 

“It was absolutely terrifying,” said Toorkie. “So many of my loved ones were suddenly just gone, and the other turkeys were saying that they’ve been sent to a place they’d never return from. I was very confused at the time — how could such a place exist? How could they do that to us? But I soon realized that my family, friends and relatives all died because of the inhumane actions.”

Though it seems shocking that one species could cruelly kill another like this, we turkeys have seen it firsthand. To make matters worse, we have no clue what’s going on until it happens.

“I don’t even know what to say at this point,” said Gibin Tanksturkie, a turkey who miraculously escaped the slaughtering. “The one thing I’ve learned so far is that [humans] are only nice if they want something from you. We were given abundant food and a lavish life for a few months before they suddenly went, ‘Surprise! Get in the crates so that we can profit from your lifeless body.’”

Not only do humans lack consideration for the lives of us turkeys, they also fail to recognize what their obsession over turkeys does to the environment. It’s widely known that consuming animal products can cause a larger carbon footstep, and rather than consider cutting back, they’re buying large amounts of meat and cooking it for so long in the horrendous contraption they call an “oven.”

“While humans have claimed that they are attempting to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by reducing the slaughtering of animals, their actions during major holidays prove otherwise,” Tanksturkie observed. “Rather than caring about the impact their actions have on the environment and thousands of turkey families, all their energy goes into figuring out the best way to cook us. How can anything be more hypocritical?”

Perhaps worst of all is that there is an entire holiday set around our slaughter, with us as the primary symbol. “Thanksgiving” is a word that strikes fear into the heart of every turkey — but ironically enough, we are one of the main features of the day. 

Humans are able to be “thankful” at our expense — that is to say, our lives are the source of their thankfulness. While they are gathering around a table to express their thanks for each other and their food, we turkeys are in the exact opposite situation. We have nothing to be grateful for, as our communities are torn apart, and we are the food. Thanksgiving is meant to be a day of thanks, yet our day is filled with grief and determination to survive.

“Why should we be thankful for humans taking the lives of our community?” said Tanksturkie. “They’re practically massacring us, and they think the primary emotion we should be feeling for this is thankfulness? It is absolutely ridiculous.”

Agreeing with Tanksturkie, Toorkie states, “It’s crazy to think humans are thankful for the massacre of another species. Crazy, but unfortunately true. We have lives too, and we deserve to survive past the five months that aren’t even guaranteed to us.”

While the humans have touching family gatherings, us turkeys have no family left to celebrate with. For most of us, our only dream is to experience one Christmas. Just one. But we’re plucked from our homes and killed so suddenly that it leaves no room for us to even start getting into the holiday spirit, much less feel thankful for anything. The truly horrifying holiday should not be called “Thanksgiving.” The turkey’s lives are shamelessly thrown away, simply to make the humans happy and full, for their happy family reunions when such a thing is something that us turkeys can only dream about.

This devastating holiday is truly a horrific holiday that is the most violent one known to turkey-kind.