the protagonist will struggle in a work of fiction
and that struggle gives
us a perverse pleasure we don’t want for us
ourselves, but which we know is one of the
pleasures of reading, even as we read for a second
time, knowing full well the chances
the protagonist will take that
are in vain and will harden their fictional life
against them, as the plot continues to unfold and denies
them repeatedly, yet gives what we want to us
/ / /
This poem was written to the second chance prompt at Poetic Asides.
Sadly Waiting for Recess 