Compassion Beyond the Page

You once had 

compassion

You once used 

to care

You didn’t turn

the pages

hoping Wilbur,

despite Charlotte’s

best intentions,

would still 

lie sliced upon 

Zuckerman’s

plate

You weren’t 

rooting for Nemo

to stay trapped

forever in the 

dentist’s tank,

to never again 

know the ocean

or see his father

You didn't cheer
when a bullet

took the life

of Bambi’s mother,

leaving a scared,

confused orphan

to wander 

the forest alone

Man, as the 

looming

harbinger

of death,

did not qualify 

as the good guy

to your seven-

year-old heart

It is just fiction,

you say

But it isn’t

You didn’t 

just care

because they 

spoke English

You cared 

because 

they felt,

they lived

they loved,

and they still do

Not just the 

ones on the page,

but the ones

on your plate

Their pain,

their life,

their death

isn’t fictional

It is a brutal reality

that would have

horrified 

our seven- 

year-old eyes

If life were a movie

from the animals’

perspective,

humans would be

among the worst

villains the screen

has ever known

But we don’t have

to be typecast

In real life,

we get to choose 

our own role

4 Dec 2018