Misunderstanding

idea: okapis are misunderstood. the zebras think it’s fake zebra and the giraffes think it’s a fake giraffe. everyone is super mean to it. there is no happy ending. the life of the okapi sucks

The Velvet Lie

The velvet coat, a tapestry of rust and cream,
A mottled shadow in the sunlit stream.

They call him Okapi, but the name is thin,
A whisper lost where true belonging can’t begin.

He walks a path beneath a judging sky,
Where every glance is cruel, and reason dies.

The world looks close, attempts to categorize,
And finds his gentle form entirely crazy.

The zebra snorts, a bitter, hollow sound,
“It’s not real,” the lie is stamped and bound.

They see the stripes, the pattern sharp and bright,
But miss the quiet ache within the light.

They think it fake, a counterfeit design,
A blurred reflection of some mocking line.

The giraffe looks down from branches high and far,
And scoffs at shadows where the truth may are.

“No neck so long,” they murmur in their dread,
“This is no vision of what ought be spread.”

They see the shape, the awkward, curving grace,
But cannot fathom the unique space.

So comes the scorn, a thousand pointed words,
A symphony of malice, cruel and blurred.

The hunters pause, the farmers turn away,
And judge the creature he cannot sway.

Every gaze is filled with cruel disdain,
A monument to misunderstanding.

Oh, the life of him, a slow and heavy toll,
A lonely burden in the animal soul.

He seeks no solace in the barren ground,
Where empathy has nowhere to be found.

The silence screams of things he cannot say,
Of being viewed through every cruelest day.

There is no joyful arc, no golden end,
No loving tribute that a friend might send.

Just endless space beneath a chilling moon,
A solitary life arriving soon.

He bears the weight of what is not perceived,
A living sorrow, cruelly unweaved.

The velvet coat conceals a deep despair,
A heavy silence hanging in the air.

For all the world desires to see and know,
The Okapi simply watches, watching slow.

Misunderstood, behind the watchful eye,
He walks the earth beneath a painted sky.