The Actions of Others

wondering if performative is the word used to describe me?

it isn’t, not exactly—

performative means there’s an audience

and somewhere backstage, a self

waiting to go back to being itself

.

this isn’t that

there’s no backstage

there’s only the next room

and what it needs you to be

before you ever touch the door

.

at least it feels that way

.

when you’ve gotten so good at bending

your spine doesn’t remember straight

anymore—

.

if it ever did

.

when you rehearse yourself in the doorways

recalibrate before the handle can even turn

who do they need?

who do they want?

who can I be?

.

some nights you catch it—

a stranger wearing your face

the mid-laugh,

at a joke that you didn’t find funny

.

you don’t correct it

you can’t correct it

you never correct it

you watch her run the room

from somewhere behind your own eyes,

a tenant in her own house

paying rent in silence

.

the worst part isn’t the shifting

.

the worst part is

you’re not sure where the original is

that there is nothing to shift back to

.

or maybe there never was

there just is this now

the empty vessel

a tired home within a home

now, you’re just too tired to look