“Before my version begins to fade,
Let me relieve what happened today.
Today was not a lifetime of discrimination and shame,
But of celebration as a black man living in Ukraine.”

– culled from the EPIGRAPH

A brave and explorative Artisan
Calm exterior but he was born a warrior
A Leon not bothered about territory
A Leon who hunted alone.
And a Leon who hurt alone.

With a free prefrontal cortex, he came prepared for learning…
And learn he did, as his memory campus would get soiled with complex realities.
In my first anatomy tour, all I saw were dry cadavers,
But by the end of my tenure, I saw my own fresh blood.

No tribal marks but you can tell he started out with an Afro.
And in this foreign soil, explorations were his special dish.
To-and-fro he evolved… and no, he didn’t hail from the safari.
From a genial ark but he always kept his wits about him.

And when he stepped out, he was like a fresh aphrodisiac.
Through his eyes, you could hear all of his favorite tunes.
Black vanilla at his core as he had a thing for interfacing.
General with a stylus brush,
Hankie forever in the back pocket.

Like his paws, his heart appears four-chambered,
But on closer inspection, you see a fifth chamber a short distance away from the rest.
A blind Cub walking in the midst of hyenas,
With lesions so deep, they suffocated him where it hurt most.

The pages are filled with art and expression,
As I relive this once-in-a-lifetime experience…
Which shaped me into the man I am today.