Horizontal Stripes

Has anyone here seen the zebra
with the horizontal stripes?

Something so bizarre, so unreal
simply cannot not be
This dashing animal of a million horizons
would make weep all who see it
Emblazoned with the faceless eggshell clouds, against the midnight sky
portrait of the winter dusk, snowy ridges draping the dozing earth
and an Avatar, Hero, Champion
to all who are doomed to be different

No one knows if it really exists
But I feel as if I do
(excuse the redundancy)
but Something so "bizarre", so "unreal"
simply cannot not be
in my life, I have seen many horizontal stripes
Difficult to discern, but present nevertheless
In a sea of vertical stripes they shimmer like a summer sunset
But the vertical stripes, they fume and fuss with Righteous indignation
crush, stomp, pierce, grind underfoot
with angry weapons and tempered wills
some fight back, Stone Walls of defiance and defense
but like Berlin they crumble and succumb
Towering banners of conquest fence in the horizontal stripes
glares with vicious stares, viscous hearts
Judgments (mis)judged by sightless eyes and deaf ears and closed minds
and sentenced to exile, like the unyielding nails sealing each coffin

I sit in a nameless bar, pondering my zebra of horizontal stripes
and witness a chilling confrontation
A single unassuming horizontal stripe sits alone
and two vertical stripes approach
I hear an innocuous exchange of words, brief and faint to me
The horizontal stripe smiles an innocent smile and answers a question,
"I am a Shepherd."
To the untrained ear, a simple harmless tete-a-tete
But I know, I know how to read between the vertical lines
and I sense hatred, I sense malice, I sense unquestionable loathing
I foresee the broken body of this poor Shepherd under the shadows of those hateful stripes
a poor sheep assaulted by two wolves-in-hiding, and left to die
I watch with growing dismay
and I do not understand
and with a purloined Stein of baffled puzzlement
cry "stripes are stripes are stripes are stripes!"
But alas, I am unheard
And what can I do?
for I am too a horizontal stripe

There are a few, limited vertical stripes
whom I can call friend
They share my dream of the zebra with horizontal stripes
and their sympathy and compassion are boundless
The tears they cry for us fall like gentle April rain,
single beams of light from a forbidding sky
and we meet in between and coalesce in a brilliant rainbow of understanding
Mutual empathy, mutual tolerance
Sometimes they ask me,
"Wouldn't it be easier to be vertical?"
and I can only reply
"I am who I am."

after all
who would want to be vertical?
to be vertical is to stand, like silent monoliths without a cause
to stand is to stare down the future, worry, fret, and squirm
standing like docile soldiers, shoulder to shoulder, marching without question or independence
it's so much better being horizontal
to be horizontal is to relax, to lounge on a lazy Sunday morning
to splay yourself across a hammock and gaze up at the stars
laid down like a noble road, guiding travelers to home and safety

Those other zebras, with their prim and proper
blanched and bleached
towers of stark ivory
So bland in their design, so blank in countenance
but you, my zebra of horizontal stripes
my symbol of a million horizons
my Hero, my Champion
my vindication for being
I await your arrival
and until the day I cross your path
I'll continue waiting, searching, asking

Has anyone here seen the zebra
with the horizontal stripes?