"Anxious Reader" Inspired by Where the Crawdads Sing:

Anxious Reader

I put down the book in anger

when happily ever after

appeared too soon.

Happy endings can’t be

in the first third of a story,

and I read to assure myself

that happily ever afters exist.

After a sufficient mourning period

for the ending that didn’t last,

I held the book tighter,

desperately entreating the heroine

to not make poor choices

and cursing the path the author paved

away from the ending I wanted.

I dropped the book in shock

when the character I thought I knew

revealed secrets she’d been keeping.

I had to begrudgingly applaud the author

for writing a better ending

than the happily ever after

that could have been.