A letter to Sambuca

dear Sambuca

I am writing you this letter, hoping you survived. writing this is hard for me, but it is not as hard as all the pain you must have felt.

i feel guilty, and if it helps, have been feeling guilty all my life for what i've done.

you were not a friend, Sambuca and I started out fearing you. and you know this. you must have even enjoyed it. but over time , we came to find a way to coexist. a way to equalize both our strengths, and weaknesses, threats and counter threats. our detant, was not to be for long, i am afraid, as you know all too well.

what I did was inexcusable,

there was trust between us, Sambuca, and it is that, and its betrayal, which I saw through your disbelieving eyes, at that moment so long ago, as they glared in surprise and shock, and pain, which burn in my mind, as they always burned under the bed.

those five yellow eyes of yours, so haunting as they were, haunt me still, Sambuca.

Perhaps I betrayed myself as much as I betrayed you. sure, there was no torment, like you had undoubtedly been feeling all these years, yet in my hearts, Sambuca, i feel your pain every day of my life. and what's more, to my horror I know today, that as I was preparing for your downfall, I was aware that the knife would inevitably cut both ways, sending both of us to suffer.

Know, Sambuca, that I would have much deserve it, if things were otherwise, and it would be you living a life of regret, and me being the prodded beast, to be tortured for the amusement of Those Cruel things.

But it is not so, and I made my sad choice, my snare, and trap. I sold you and you did not sell me, Sambuca.

I imagine, dear Sambuca, and hope that your period of serving as a plaything, as a trifling object, who's only worth is measured by its shreiks and by its agonized survival, had also moments of triumph. that you stood firm and succeeded. I hope you survived, dear Sambuca, longer than the pain , survived with some measure of victory in those abomitable games of them.

but I know that eventually , you didn't.

no one could.

which is the only reason, again, to my shame, that I allow myself to write this.

forgive me, where ever you are,

Sambuca, forgive me.