My best friend Carly and I started using the internet as a public diary when we were 13. One of her blog posts was a detailed account of how she had placed a whoopie cushion on our classmate’s chair in the middle of English class without anyone noticing. One of mine was a detailed account of how I had gotten stuck upside down between my bed and the wall. Her blog was all black with purple text. Mine was apparently some shade of blue, but my dad’s computer made everything yellow.

By accident, we discovered that a girl named Jessica had been reposting Carly’s blog entries as her own. Her blog was maroon. She would change details and names to make them applicable to her, but she never changed my name. I was always there, in her neighborhood and school, saying and doing all of the things I said in mine. In one instance, she changed “today is Christmas so I am with Kimmy’s family because my family is Jewish” to “today is Christmas so I am with Kimmy’s family because my family is boring.” We were livid, but oddly excited. Carly linked to her blog and wrote “check out the girl that’s stealing my life!” and I wrote “check out the girl that’s stealing me!”

Kimmy Walters is a poet living in St. Louis. Her first collection, Uptalk, is available through Bottlecap Press. She tweets at @arealliveghost.