"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.