feeding cat food to the leopard slugs

I caught a gnat 

stuck to my hand
smeared its body on the dinner table and
went on with my life

a million synapses from a microscopic mind
swept up and crumbled in a tissue
thrown away
I am aware, and I think of this, 
and I still kill. This makes it worse.

I pretend to feel guilty,
just to myself
I am on the stage lamenting 
gnat #16,874,926,454
I am the only one in the seat
staring blankly. Even I do not believe me
But we go on with the show 

I would’ve passed the prison experiments

deflected the Lucifer effect
I would not have administered the shocks
I’d light every anthill on fire 
even though I know they are not so different from us. This makes it worse 
I’d save every dry surface worm
Just to starve the birds 

I roll around on stage, play games 
exclaim “Nothing hurts!”

Scientists have recently discovered that flowers sing their distress and impending death
that insects hear their mourning and avoid them

I dream of the symphony of a burning field
and a dark cloud of dancers swarming 

I clean out my ears with kerosene 
and smoke in the garden

“Boom!” I pretend to explode 
she gives me a half hearted smile
and walks off, tired, as I make a racket
as I rip off my clothes she exits, absent
“See? No scars! No bones!”

I am afraid of my own smallness
and how easily it can be wiped away
erased like an errant mark on a pristine page
I only killed it because it was flying in front of my face. 

I only killed it because I could.
This makes it worse.

I shout and shamble through the empty rows
Nothing hurts! Nothing hurts!
Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

pretending as directed 

to be numb to the world