Written by Emmy Miralieva

Gatsby was a human shooting star,

Eyes glowing bright in a single direction,

But everyone knows that stars will crash and burn

If they soar too stubbornly with iron-clad conviction.

He was a man of contradiction:

Earned his wealth square through hard, crooked labor,

And owned a mansion – an American’s dream

But only filled it with party favors.

Yet, this man is not just material

For he owned an innocent dream,

To woo a lucky lady

Who was smarter than she seemed.

In stories like this, the lovesick fools always meet their end,

But we saw a lovely, innocent, young fool accused

For something he had no part in,

And I saw today his weakness was that he was easily used.

We all know in the end that he was a moth

Burned by the allure of love’s green light,

But despite a hard lesson learned of keeping one’s dreams to the ground,

I stand here and still think “What a wonderful sight”.

Hell to fleeting wealth and cowardice,

Here’s to friendship and love,

Begone the constructs of West and East Egg,

For God’s blue eyes stare at us all from above.

This poem comes from TeenInk.