The song is about Nicole killing an angel (which could be metaphorically interpreted as a dove, or another pure flying being).

It is written in the style of a sonnet, a short poem of 14 lines.

In the first two stanzes, she explains how she killed it, how she kept it, how she displayed it with pride on her wall.
In the last two stanzas, she expresses a kind of regrets : she knows what she did is bad, and she may have to answer to her actions before an higher entity.

All throughout the song there is a constant reference to religion which suggests that this could Nicole’s religious journey. In the first verse it is almost as though she has abandoned her religion and has committed sin; the angel representing the purity of herself and she has now killed that innocence. She then references that she has the crucifix on her wall showing that she still has some tie to religion, and in the third verse she tells us of her regrets and how she knows that she will go to Hell for her sins.

Her excuse is the poacher’s pride.