The cool kids invited me to ride with them

And gave me the front passenger seat,

But just as we embarked on our trip,

They asked their children to critique me

On everything I'd done wrong.

The children gladly accepted,

But began to argue first

About the proper rhetorical analogy to use.

I turned my head to see their mother,

Squeezed tightly into the back seat with them,

Her chubby index finger wagging,

Trying to stop their fuss.

I put my feet down hard on the floorboard,

And twisted as I went to open the door.

I was planning to bail when I discovered 

We weren't going anywhere.

Our passage was just a motion picture

Projected on a green screen right beside us,

So when I stood up,

The toy car we were in came apart,

And I walked home.

At home, I suddenly realized

That here, too, there was also a lot of nonsense,

And I found I now had zero tolerance for any of it.

I stood up there, too,

And busted the doll house all to bits.

And now I find myself walking down a sidewalk,

Alone and jaded, toward the end of town.

I'm hoping the forest I see is a real one,

And that it is big enough 

For me to stand up in.

-jenn