NaPoWriMo 17/30

Today’s prompt was to write an epistolary poem, a poem written in letter form, with the added fun of trying to incorporate at least four of the following six elements: 1) a song lyric, 2) a historical fact, 3) an oddball adjective-noun combination (like red grass or loud silence), 4) a fruit, 5) the name of a street in your neighborhood, 6) a measure of distance. This should be fun.

Dear Chester the Cheetah,

It pains me to see you on the bag,

Cheddar jalapeno, with your spotted cheetah tail curled 

Perfectly around the plump green pepper. 

You're wearing white high tops, and your black sunglasses and cowboy hat make me cringe. 

Oh, Chester! The original mascot for Cheetos was a mouse, 

But that wasn't extreme enough for the cocaine 80's, and thus in 1986 Chester the Cheetah was snatched (from the local zoo on Friendly Ave where he'd been studding in largely unsuccessful cheetah breeding and reproduction programs)
And a new era of crunchy corny chemical goodness was born. 

But Chester, 

I worry for you, and all of wildcat kind. You used to roam miles of expansive plains, from Africa to Asia, keen and swift, 

Once-upon-a-time alpha predator, now the cheetahs days seem numbered, 

Populations dwindling, it may soon be that you will be the only remaining representative of your species, 

Diminished, a cheesy mockery,

A two-dimensional pussy cat, with paw pads stained a queasy neon orange.