There are three people living in this house: myself, my boyfriend, and his ex-fiancée. After I lived in the house for a while I started to realize that her things held more real estate than mine. So while he was gone during the day I would go through them. I consumed her objects and constructed her thoughts. I performed with her possessions and reenacted her decisions as a way to understand my own boundaries.

I can be quiet in a room, in a house, so that no one knows I’m home. It can be a sort of game to become so quiet in a house that you don’t even believe you are there yourself. It works especially when you don’t want your roommates to bother you. It works when you don’t want to clean and your mom is looking for you, sometimes. Sometimes I can be quiet enough to believe I’m just visiting, so I tried this with her in the house. Got really quiet and sank into the bed to let her run around the house so I could watch her.

When I become her I begin a tally of our individual parts. She is shorter, she is smarter, I am blonder, she is an artist, she has more confidence? I am more independent? I identify these traits and defend them. When her character is flawed I both abandon and cherish her, after all we were chosen to be loved by the same person, a flaw in her is a flaw in me.

Now that I know her I feel abandoned by her. I feel like a friend deserted, left with a man who is rejected. I live a little still inside her doubt.