Chicken Coop

Age six: the only time

i’ve ever eaten chicken nuggets. served as fried brown chunks,

i thought they were made of potatoes. when the umami hit my tongue

i couldn’t stop myself. i ate fifteen. Age two: ahmisa, never injure. i had been taught

all divine things are living and living things

are divine, so to hurt another

being is to hurt oneself. since then, i have never swatted a mosquito. Fifteen minutes: how long it took

to tell my mother. i came home, my heart thumping,

wanting to puke every

nugget scented burp. my mother locked me

behind the bathroom for three hours.

the dissonance took twelve years to quiet. Age eighteen: i lift the tail of an unassuming

mouse; i rip her out of the home of food and feces

she made for herself. i drop her into a glass chamber with a dinky

plastic barrier linked to a small tube for ventilation.

she’s scared shitless, so she shits.

i come back with isoflurane—the chemical equivalent of

horse tranquilizer, the rodent equivalent of

unquestionable death, ready in the hands

of a student taught never to kill or

he might as well have

killed himself.

five drops of isoflourane. 4 minutes after: my hands shake

under the weight of my guilty conscience. anxiety swims to my head.

3 minutes after: i channel it back down, saying a prayer to a god i have never believed in.

the room smells like a chicken coop

i pray to my mom; i tell her

i’m sorry, i am sorry i am killing this mouse— she has done nothing but

exist as i have existed she is innocent & all she eats is

brown-mouse-chow

just as i do.

i am sorry to the mouse, so i pray

to her too. 2 minutes after: the isoflurane

drops into the box, entering through

the same tube she breathes from.

she stands no chance. her movement

becomes frenetic, her maw squashed

against the glass;

naked, hard to find an exit, unable to breathe —