Words from Mannay

The story's bled out, the shop's closed. You've seen the cleaver fall, you've watched the crimson tide roll. It's a dirty, hard-cut tale, much like the life that grinds behind any creation worth its salt.

Eddie's dance with the blade wasn't just about meat. It was about art, the brutal birth of it, the carving out of truth from a slab of the world that doesn't want to see it. That's the artist's game – hacking out pieces of themselves, hoping it'll feed the soul of a world starved for something raw, something real. That muse, the wild laugh in the dark, she's the spark that gets the blood pumping, the art flowing. But she's as fickle as the crowd that chants your name one minute and forgets you the next. She's the dream and the damnation, the beauty and the madness.

And the market, that beast—it chews up artists and spits out bones. It's the butcher's block where you lay it all out, and they come—the faceless, nameless crowd. They don't see the sweat, the blood; they just want a taste of something they can't make, can't be.

This ain't just a story, it's a slice of life, of my life, of any poor bastard who's ever tried to make something that'll outlast them. It's the music that plays long after the curtain's down, the paint that stains long after the canvas is rolled away. So here's to the final piece, not part of the triptych, but standing alone – a last testament to the whole damn show. It's the embrace of the art and the artist, the final surrender to the work that consumes you.

Thanks for walking through the blood and the sawdust. Maybe you found a piece of truth, maybe you found a piece of me(at). And maybe, just maybe, you'll remember the taste.

In the grind and the gristle,

Mannay

***

The Last Cut

A canvas of meat, a symphony of pain,
A feast for the eyes, but who’ll explain?
That every piece of me(at), in every strain,
Is a poet’s verse, a life’s refrain.

In this crude dance, this raw delight,
The story ends, in the dead of night,
With a piece of truth, in every bite,
A butcher’s ode, in the fading light.