Sitting at a coffee shop, a man taps me from behind. When I turn around he says, I’m sorry, you look just like the person I was meeting, but from behind. I’m like, Don’t worry about it. The person who walks in through the coffee shop doors and makes the bells jingle is Your ex-girlfriend, who sent You an e-mail last fall saying she hoped You’d disappear inside of my inspiring vagina. I’m thinking, the drama. I’m thinking, the big coincidence of my life. The story I will tell later, to my friends. Of course she has a name but for now she is The Girl Who Looks Just Like Me But from Behind. I’m sitting next to them, the man and The Girl Who Looks Just Like Me But from Behind, for two hours. I find that I can’t turn to look at her face, which is fine because any acknowledgment from either of us would reveal all of the hours on the internet, a window of the rabbit hole the other went down. I am frozen in front of my things. I am listening to her go on about her life. Which is a little like my life except it’s her life. She is doing really well. She is starting a jewelry business. Okay. Later that day, while waiting for the train, a woman waves at me at the end of the platform. She pushes past all the commuters. She is all flushed when she arrives, all excited, all out of breath. Then she shakes her head. I’m sorry, she says. Your hair, your glasses.
Days go by. I eat dinner. I brush my teeth. I lotion my ankles. One afternoon, in the middle of telling me about a BDSM party they went to, my friend asks me, Wait, did I tell you this already? Or was that somebody else? A car drives by me while I’m on my bicycle. A bunch of phones stick out the window. I hear clicking. In bed You tell me I smell different. I’m like Bad different? You’re like, Not good or bad. Just different. More days, more nights. My hair falls out at a usual rate. The dog I usually pet on my way to the deli starts barking at me. Inside of the library elevators, nobody knows who wants to get to the eleventh floor. My students continue their conversations when I arrive. I cook food and it keeps missing my mouth. My cat looks out the window like I’m about to come home even though I’m right there. Onstage, I take a deep breath. Begin my poem. Try to not just recite it. Feel it this time. Remember the person I was when I wrote it. I hear sipping from a beer can. The crossing and uncrossing of legs. I finish. Nobody claps. Nobody cheers. Someone whispers to the person who dragged them here, When is the show supposed to start? One morning I look up at the mirror from washing my face and it’s like my face is scrolling upward, like someone else’s thumb is pushing it there. I try to hold it down.