east of eden

Oh! How one projects themselves on to literature!

Authors give us their detailed pages: coloring books really, black and white and hollow. Textual figures begging to be filled, enticing us to flow and spill our very selves in to them.

beth paint.

And while we read, our crayola minds scribble inside and outside the lines, shading with various textures of intent, emphasis mushed around the borders.

And when we're all done, you and I tear out identical pages and post them on a mustard refrigerator

Taking three steps back, heads tilt-clicked to the side, the pages suggest that we've just read two very different novels.