Sin

I saw your face for the first time this past friday
though you've been frequenting my cupboards for weeks.
Reluctant to admit the scratching sounds might in fact be creaturely,
the covers-over-my-head method sufficed in denial, in the dark, night after
night as your nails went deeper into the wood, your teeth deeper into
the excess bags of pasta on my wooden shelves from ikea.
But when you decided to traverse from the kitchen through
the hallway, past the front door, under the bookshelves, to the
big brown leather chair--five feet away from my bed--you sealed your fate.

Or perhaps my fear sealed your fate.

The nearness of you, the possibility that you might, for whatever reason
come at me, hurt me and leave me sleepless for years
(which has happened before with other creatures of a somewhat anthropocentric nature)
was too much for me to fathom.

I bought the poison the next day.

The Longs Drug Store, on Rose & Vine, had 4 options, technologies (?), tools available for a killing plot such as this. I stood on aisle 3 for what
seemed like an eternity, considering things like
poison or snap?
how long will it take?
is it big enough?
will you suffer too much?
do the remains remain?
and finally decided to go with the little turquoise pebbles that
you'd unknowingly eat up like candy before
they caused your intestines to malfunction. i thought:
maybe this way I won't have to see the body after it dies;
perhaps you'll just crawl outside and pass away,
out of sight, though certainly not out of mind.
You came out of your hole at 10:30pm that night,
ate the entire tray before morning.

The package said the process could take anywhere from 4-6 days.

Night #2, post-operation-poison, you began crying out from the cupboards.
I started crying too. What had I done? You were just hungry.
I called Lincoln who said "Grab your baseball bat, go in there and put him out of his misery. It's the right thing to do. You can't just let him suffer."
I hung up the phone and cried harder when I realized I could never
bash your skull in: I just don't have it in me.

Today I got a huge rat snap trap, one that will surely
take you out the minute you step on it, which I hope might lessen
the amount of suffering I originally prescribed.
By my hand you are going to die; the least I can do is make it faster.

The reason I am writing to you tonight is not artistic, but apologetic.
I am sorry I couldn't come up with a more creative way for us to part ways.
I am sorry someone fucked me a up a long time ago, in the middle of the night, in ways that are now affecting you. Han?
I am sorry that life has become so boundaried: human/animal, home/nature: that your little body was seen as such a threat.
I hope there is a heaven for you, and yet I know, such a "heaven" exists to absolve my guilt and nothing further.
So I guess what I am saying is, I hope you can forgive me, or that something can because I feel so god-fucking-awful.