In a Mansion with a Murderer

yep, this really happened.

I was abandoned, plans gone wrong
the ultimate ultimatum I faced
Time had escaped, all options gone
thirty days to leave that place.

Nowhere to go, no money left
eighteen and out, they say
Divine intervention, an angel's breath
on the telephone that day.

She had heard my story, extended her hand,
this stranger on the line.
She had a mansion up north worth nine hundred grand;
the whole upstairs could be mine.

After soaking in the jacuzzi, cruising in her Jag,
watching movies in my theater at home,
I swayed in that day, glimpsed a weathered bag,
another, like me, had come along.

Oh but how unlike me he was, I had yet no clue,
my new housemate to be.
Fresh from prison, faded teardrop tattoo
twenty years older than me.

His flat top hair, gold teeth, mexican accent thick,
out of his shirt peeked deep scars.
Leader of a gang, the worst crime he could've picked:
then ten years behind bars.

Every moment together, his words shook my naive mind,
prison stories spilled from his lips.
How he killed who, all the gory details of each crime,
what it was like being in the Crypts.

My eyes bore into the crown crudely carved into his chest,
thoughts wild, eyes bugged.
Decision made then and there to fly from that nest
before my own grave had been dug.

This is just the third example of this life I live on the run;
with no warning, I up and left once more.
A habit I have since mastered, something I have many times done
and will for years to come, I'm sure.