i live a double life.

i live in a open book, on either page. i think it may be an atlas, but my life also resembles something of a novella. not long enough to write too much, not short enough to jot it down on a few sheets of paper. if you open to page 122, you will find me there. i will be sitting on the top of a mound of grass in front of a unfamiliar house, in a photo from decades ago. the crease in the page will be well worn in. the letters will shine out in different volumes, up and down, left to right. sometimes they will read a beautiful story, drawn out with long sentences and curious words. you won't be able to tell if the ink is a blue, a violet, or a deep red. sometimes it is all three. other times, the black ink on the paper will stand still and rigid. you will recite the paragraphs as if they are carved in stone, buried six feet under a tombstone that cradles dozens of dead lilies. you will read on and on until you start to notice that the hymn you are following is a lack of a pattern. the meter rings loud and untrue. no matter what the words may sing, you will feel them play right along with the photo of me and the grass and the house. the clouds big and glooming overhead, the sun spitting straight through and onto the wilted green grass. you trail down the page and smile, and wince, not knowing which is natural and which is reaction. fall onto page 123, and i'm there too. written deep into the plot, circled around clips and images and photos of the people i knew. these faces glow bright, into your eyes. they remind you of people you knew, people you used to remember. i sit facing the inside of the page, glaring over to the previous. your eyes roll back and forth, comparing and contrasting. my life stays on either page, reciting and remembering. i live in the center of this novella, this atlas, this map; jumping from page to page in my mind and in your recollection of the words you just read. i live in the duality of this story, of this life, and of this world. it is what you may think your eyes are tricking you into seeing, or what your brain is trying to force you to understand. i live in your mind and in mine. in the mind of one side of this page, one side of this country, and in the reality of the other side. which one is which is still something i have yet to discover.