"Metaphors are Like Art" Inspired by Steelheart:

Metaphors are Like Art

Reading is like putting yourself

in a painting.

You walk around a world

of someone else’s making,

enjoying the view

and reacting to what happens

in the next painting in the series.

Then you start to see yourself in it

or maybe you project yourself

or find that you feel how a character feels.

Then you are more than an observer–

then you start to manipulate the painting

to illustrate your emotions alongside the characters

(but that would be vandalism).

Reading is like putting yourself

in a coloring book.

You start to explore the author’s world

and fill in the spaces they leave behind.

You work together with real and fictional people

that you will never meet

but with whom you connect on a deeper level.

The story is now yours

in a way that it will never be anyone else’s

because they didn’t feel like you felt

because they didn’t imagine in the colors you chose

because they didn’t change their lives

from that one line of text that changed yours.

As you choose the colors,

and sometimes draw outside the specified lines,

you become an honorary coauthor

without getting any rights or royalties or credit

(but not in a plagiarism way).

Reading is like opening a coloring book that was

unknowingly made for you

and bleeding all over the pages

because the story is yours, too.