She looked deep into the pages
Of the book she held and read,
And felt herself drawn to the fictional boy
Who came to life in her head.
He wasn't the main hero,
Nor starred in the main parts,
But as she kept on reading his story,
Something about him gripped her heart.
She cried for him in his weakness
And hurt along with his pain,
And in the scenes where he was charming and happy,
Her face was all smiles once again.
Before she had gotten very far in the story,
She knew she liked him a lot,
And she whispered to him sadly as she touched the pages,
"I'd date you if you were real - but you're not."
-
He lived inside the pages
Of a fictional series that day
When he met his favorite reader
And she stole his heart away.
He felt, as she read, he was getting to know her,
Just the same as she felt about him,
Yet whenever she put the book down for a while,
Her thoughts that he saw would go dim;
For whenever he touched the page she was touching,
It was like he entered her mind,
But they couldn't really communicate with each other
Because their worlds were of two different kinds.
He came to love her companionship,
And he liked it when she laughed;
He appreciated the fullness of her depth
While others often saw only half.
He fell for her personality,
And he knew she had a good heart;
And the way she so often could relate to him
Was one of the very best parts.
-
But, alas! The unmoveable, unbreakable barrier
Between real life and fiction remained.
It stood fast in spite of a world full of wishing,
No matter how much avid readers complained.
So day after day, as she read through his story,
She thought, "I like him - I wish he'd come true,"
And on his side he thought if he could tell her just one thing,
He'd say, "I have a crush on you, too."
---
(Copyright 2019)
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125,021 Literary Works • 672,740 Reviews
Hello Winny(can I call you by that name lol)! I'm Toast and I would like to review this piece of wonderful poetry you have written out.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading a lot of your poems (they're so whimsically lyrical and beautifully worded), but I felt the strongest urge to review this poem in particular because even if it's a bit old, I felt such a strong attraction to it.
Thoughts From a Reader
oh my goodness, you have illustrated my feelings for fictional characters that I totally can date (zero coping here) so well!
All the lines are very clean and lyrical with rhymes to keep the flow of reading smooth and easy. Your colorful and emotionally invoking choice of words really add a lot to the story written out in this poem. It's also really lovely how you gave the character in the book a mind of their own as well, showing that this feeling is reciprocated in more ways than one.
Improvements For the Writer
Although I don't have much I can really comment on this piece of poetry (it really is such a great piece of work), I think I can point out some changes you made in your writing that I noticed!
I see that you have diversified your vocabulary a bit, especially in the most recent poem you published (You Came to Me in a Dream), where a lot more complex words were used.
However, aside from a slight shift in vocabulary and better flow, I think your writing style is really easy to follow and invokes a lot of emotional thoughts while reading.
Reader Fanboys Over Lines
I feel that this line really stands out to me because of how creative it is. You have turned the book, and more than that, a character into a book into an actual character that feels emotions, and this line made me guilty about the one too many books I've abandoned despite thinking "eh, I'll read them later" and never do so.
This is such a tragic line and I love the reciprocated but unreciprocable feelings that these two people feel for one another. This really adds that these characters writers write in stories are more than well... just... characters, and that they have care put into them, and they have their own life that writers have created.
All-in-All
i probably yapped too much, but thank you for requesting a review, and your works are genuinely so beautiful! Not just this one, but other poetry that you have created are so creative and I really love the words and themes you choose for these poems.
Have a great day and always drink enough water (I forget to do that so it's a reminder for me as well)
Thanks so much for the review, and glad you liked it!
When I wrote the part about touching the page and feeling each other's thoughts/feelings, I had in mind a sort of telepathy via touch, only since they can't touch each other, the telepathy has to be conveyed by touching the page. So yeah, I did get a bit creative with this one.
I love this poem so much because I feel like a lot of people can relate to having formed close ties to fictional characters, whether through literature of film. I actually really like the fact that you didn't reveal anything about the actual book/story that she was reading; the vagueness makes it easier to focus on the relationship between the girl and the boy.
There are a couple of lines that came off as a bit awkward ("And the way she so often could relate to him / Was one of the very best parts") but it makes sense since you had to adhere to your rhyme scheme. I found the ending to be a bit comical, even; I'm not sure if you intended it to be that way, but I liked the idea of a reader communicating with their beloved characters in a "mutual" conversation.
This is a very unique topic to write a poem on, and the use of a rhyme scheme and set structure helped keep it flowing smoothly as I read through it.
Not sure if you considered it, but this particular topic would actually be cool to see as a multi-part piece -- I personally would love to see a sort of sequel in which we get a closer look into the story itself, or maybe what kind of ending there lies for these two. I'm totally getting ahead of myself, though, so feel free to ignore this rambling..
All in all, it was a great poem, and I'd love to read more of your writing!!
I like this narrative poem, and it had just an adorably bitter-sweet ending. Really neat concept, and the story definitely came through the piece as well. I thought the formatting was fine, though I'd say some of the lines got a little long and in parts I wonder if you could have been more concise.
My favorite part was probably the sweetness at the end. My suggestion is to be a little more concrete on why the two liked each other - you say that the girl cried, but we don't really get to know his story or what was so sad about it, adding those little specific concrete details will make the story come alive even more. I wrote an article on Specificity in Poetry if you could use some more ideas about adding specificity.
I also think that this poem would make for an intriguing short story, I'd love to read it if you ever do write it that way - there were just more details that I wanted to know!
Best of luck in all of your future writing!
alliyah
**My Thoughts**
Hey! LZ here with a review! I really, really liked this poem! I love the plot, the wording, and practically everything about it!
**Formatting and Grammar**
Your formatting was marvelous. This poem was very neat and I loved how you indented every second line. I haven't seen anyone do that (so far) in the poems I have read on this site. I liked it!
Your wording was wonderful, too! My favorite line was this:
"But, alas! The unmoveable, unbreakable barrier"
I liked how well those adjectives went together! The only thing wrong that I found was in my favorite line, though. You spelled "unmovable" wrong. I believe you added an e before the a.
**Punctuation and Capitalization**
I didn't notice anything wrong in both of these categories. Your punctuation was fantastic! I loved how you used complete punctuation and not just commas or periods. I also liked how you capitalized the beginning of every line. It looked very clean.
**Quick Review**
Great poem! No errors (that I caught) beside one spelling mistake in the last stanza!
Keep on writing and have a great 2020!!
Ok, lol, I've read this, quote, unquote, Amazing poem, and I have to say it is pretty great. The idea is fabulous and the perspectives are very cute. When I first started reading, I thought this would probably work better in a story form, but the structure is really nice as a poem and, even though there's no knowledge of the background, like what the book even is, it seems complete. There are two things here that I'd maybe change, like one line when it says, her face is all smiles again, I'd change it to something, like she smiles again, and get rid of the extra words. Overall, since it is poetry, making it a bit less wordy might prove beneficial. The other thing is the last stanza; to me, it kind of appears unnecessary because we already know the two can never meet, though I'd somehow keep the last 2 lines because they are a nice way to end the poem. I really did like this poem a lot, especially how it flowed and created a complete story without too many details, so good job
)
Wow, this is an amazing poem! People should really read it! . . .