This is another poem I wrote for the poetry unit, about a snake “hugging” a mouse. The narrator is a seven year-old boy who doesn’t realize what’s actually happening. It is imperative to the humor of this story that you read it in the voice of a pretentious small child. Warning: dark humor, euphemized death.
"Timmy, go outside!"
Mom's hollering across the house.
The door slams behind me.
She yells something
about attitude.
I mutter back about her not being the boss of me.
I'm seven now, after all.
I make sure it's just loud enough for our door cam to pick it up.
Really, I want to be out here.
It smells nice,
like pines,
and grass,
and wind,
and yesterday’s rain.
Not like inside.
Inside doesn’t smell nice at all.
Something’s broken, I don’t remember what.
When it’s nice and cold like today it turns on,
and the whole house smells like something is burning.
When it isn’t on,
it smells old.
I’m not sure which I hate more.
But I’m not inside anymore.
I’m trekking through my trees,
deciding what kind of adventure I’ll be having today.
Then I spot them.
I freeze.
I don’t want to startle them.
Either of them.
There’s a snake coiled around a pine,
and a mouse in front of it.
I wonder what they’re doing,
and I stay super still so they might let me see.
The snake leaps towards the mouse.
I flinch.
I’ve heard of some really scary snakes that’ll kill you with a bite,
but it doesn’t bite the mouse.
It hugs it tight,
like Aunt Joanna does to me when we see her.
I grin in delight.
I didn’t know animals hugged each other!
The mouse doesn’t look happy.
It’s squirming around,
like it’s trying to get loose.
I guess the snake really is like Aunt Joanna,
and that mouse really is like me.
I feel a bit bad for it.
I know what it’s like to get hugged by someone you really don’t like,
but I also know that I’m supposed to be polite and let them hug me,
and I think the same goes for mice, right?
So I just stand and wait and watch.
The snake squeezes harder.
Relatives always do when you try and escape their hugs.
Doesn’t the mouse know that?
If it would just stop squirming the snake would probably let it go.
Eventually, it does.
The mouse goes still.
I guess it figured out my trick,
cuz the snake lets go of it completely.
Either that or it said something really nasty.
I got in trouble for doing that to Aunt Joanna once.
She stopped hugging me faster than my sister runs when she sees a spider,
but then I got a talking-to and no dessert.
I think it’s easier to just stand still like one of the trees until she lets go.
I’m so excited that I sprint back to the house.
“Michelle!” I yell for my sister.
“You’ll never believe it!”
“I just saw a snake hugging a mouse!”
