"You call this poetry?" he said. "Let me show you real poetry."
He took me by the hand and started running. I screamed out in surprise. "Wait a minute," I said, but we were already outside.
Down the street, past the store, around the corner we went.
Soon we burst in through the doors of the main library. "We don't need to rush," I said as he led me down the aisle of poetry. He scanned the bookshelves, and then he grabbed a book like it's been waiting there for him. Then before I could catch my breath, he started running again.
We ran up like four flights of stairs, and I probably died a little inside. Then finally at the rooftop patio, I tried to say that he's insane, but I was out of breath. Then for a moment we just stood there, panting, the cool breeze in my direction.
"This," he said. "This is real poetry."
"What do you mean, 'real poetry'?" I said.
"Oh right," he said as he handed the book over.
With one glance at the book, it wasn't a pretty cover, but I hardly got to read half of the title before he put his hand right over it. Confused, I looked back up at him. "What are you doing?" I said, but he only looked right back at me.
My breathing was still heavy but I stood there and waited for him to say something. I searched his eyes, looking at his right eye then his left, then his right eye again.
He still said nothing. However, in that long moment of pause, I started to notice the insanity of it all—his dark hair in the wind, his brown eyes lit up by the sun. The dripping sweat along my forehead and the faint sounds of cars in the streets below. I could feel the warmth of sunlight on my face as our hands still held onto the book between us.
We just stood there for a long minute before he broke the silence.
"What is it?" he said.
"You're not real," I said. "I'm a writer, and you're just a random character I've made up in my mind."
He laughed. "But I am alive. I'm actually waiting for you to discover my story, since no one knows about it yet, right?"
I was left dumbstruck at his response, and then I looked back down at the pen in my hand.
All of these lines I've written onto the page have come together and created something impossible, and now this tiny piece of paper has been brought back to life.
So this is what real poetry looks like.
