Thickets under the sun

It's the mean things;
the petty things,
the things that irritate you
and that things that discomfit
those around you.

It's the silence and the loudness;
it's the lack of empathy and an
overwhelming presence of judgment.
It's the fear. The wear and tear.
The hands that catch you and care.

It's everything around us.
In a big bright blue bus.
Shut the door, get in.
Time for you to see the world;
to break out of your mould.

You're the driver. You're in charge.
You're the passenger too. Keep driving.
When you see a fork in the road, stop!
Get out of your bus and really look.
That'll be your Robert Frost moment.

And then you can proudly declare:
"Two roads diverged in a wood,
and I took a walk to clear my muddled head.
I took the road that no one saw.

Between thickets and thorns,
partheniums, calatropis flowers
and a hippo with an open jaw.

Between pesky parrots, rotund rodents
and stressed squirrels fighting in the wild
for a tiny nut —like poor college students.

Between slithering snakes slapping their tails
on the warm earth—twerking their non-existent backs,
to show off hisses and scary poison flares.

Between little drops of sunshine
glinting on the civet's fur, and lines
on the zebra's white, or black...? skin.

I find my home;
and I say it's mine."