This place
is not real,
but what it does to us
leaves marks,
and scars,
and changes us
in ways we cannot see.
A lion
in captivity
is not a lion,
at least
not like any lion
on the African plain.
We’ve become surrogate.
No longer true
to whom,
or what
we are.
But merely
avatars
in a simulation.
A diorama,
capturing our being.
Do you remember
at all
what it was like
to be wild?
DJR – 2022
