Unexpected House Guests

The burglars came In their ski masks And though they thought the house was empty It was not

Embarrassed by their mistake They apologized and my mother Ever southern polite Invited them in for tea and cake

The hour was late And so they wouldn’t have to drive tired My mother invited them to stay the night In the upstairs guest room

The next morning was Sunday And she served them waffles And fresh brewed coffee Which they ate from real china with real silverware

That was two months ago They didn’t really decide to stay They just can’t commit to stealing When the person they’d offend is just so southern nice

I have no idea where this one came from. I think I’m just in an odd mood today. I wanted to write a new article, but after starting several, none seemed to be going somewhere I could make interesting or novel. I am set on not just regurgitating a story you can find elsewhere and which doesn’t really inform, excite or engage.

So I turned to poetry and this is what came out. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been watching this series that has quite a bit of violence in it. It’s called, Shooter, so I don’t know what I was expecting.

I guess I needed to write something where I neutralized the criminals. No mention of weapons, the ski masks may be a bit intimidating but clearly, they lose those pretty quickly. I mean it’s not like they’d leave them on when the woman of the house invites them in for tea, right?

Then there’s the failure to want to hurt someone who has treated them well. There’s the kernel of it, I think. There seems to be so many people who just take advantage of others, and have no problem hurting those who are good to them, ignore their flaws and treat them with respect. It seems to have become an epidemic. Perhaps this is my way of remaking that trend, if only in a poem. But, for what it’s worth, it made my breath come a bit easier. It made me smile. I hope it does the same for you.

Natalie Frank (Taye Carrol) has had her poetry featured in several anthologies including Untimely Frost. Her fiction has been published in Haunted Waters Press, Weirdbook Magazine, Siren’s Call Publications, Lycan Valley Press and Zero Fiction among others. She holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. Her collection of poetry, Disguised I Breathe, In Love I Hold, can be found on Amazon under her pen name, Taye Carrol.

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You can also find links to all of the articles, essays, fiction and poetry I publish on Medium here. Thanks for reading and for supporting Mental Gecko!