the others didn’t like him
his markings were different
his stripes were too bright
he’d been places
seen things
and he understood them better than they understood themselves
he had the scars of life experience
and he wore them with pride
having travelled to the darkest corners of the jungle
living wonders and horrors
they could only imagine
from the confines of their pen
so shallow and so rigid
he was a dangerous reminder of all they were not
maybe they were just sheep after all
he came with a  sense of danger
and they came with the scent of fear
he could smell it on them
he was a tiger
and they were all lambs
and the lambs had nothing for him
but they bleated as if they knew better
and they hid within their herds
the way cowards always do
because that was all they knew
safety in numbers
the company of the crowd
they would never know what it took to be a tiger
to walk alone in the wilderness
to swim up river with his big padded paws
there was a great strength in his solitude
but they knew very little
of either
strength or solitude
plus the sheep had no style
so they hated him for his
in fact the tiger had more style in one paw
than all of them put together
he peered into the pen
briefly licking his teeth
but it looked so empty in there
that’s when he realised
that the crowd was a just another prison
and so was the herd
just an empty pen
full of empty people
living and dying their empty little lives
he would lose his freedom by joining them
he would sacrifice his stripes
no longer king of the jungle
they would sedate him and put him on display
in a petting zoo
until he was no more a tiger than they were
just a trophy on a shelf
for the dumb public to come and take pictures with
and he would sit there
wishing he could disappear
his eyes blinded by flash photography
his wild spirit destroyed
the very essence of him gone
and they would keep him
until he lost all his colour
and then they would lose interest
in the tiger they had tamed
in the trophy they had spoiled
no
this was no life for a tiger
no place for him to live
no company to keep
the sheep had nothing for him
except for the prison sentence
of their acceptance
he was better off alone
back in the wilderness
where he belonged
out in the jungle
where he could prowl freely
without judgement of his stripes