The inspiration for this poem came from Charles Bukowski's poem For Jane and the idea of accepting your "inner demons" through the depiction of tigers. In addition, this work's inspiration is further derived from an illustration inspired by the popular comic Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Waterson. The image depicts a striped tiger sitting next to a small blonde haired boy on a bench with their backs to the viewer. I came across this image on the internet and the idea of sitting side by side with your faults and acknowledging them for what they are and finding peace with that appealed to me in such a way that Bukowski's poem had. I found an immediate correlation between the two of them and thus creating the subject of this piece.