Everybody’s Ex – Kathleen Coleslaw

May 27, 2026

Trauma photographs.
I always thought I looked tough
instead of soft and vulnerable.
Figured the neon sign outside the motel
went out for good when I turned
twenty-five.
Drifters would no longer be invited
to stop between my bug-bitten legs.
My neon sign is forever a lighthouse signal.
A neurotic keeper of said tower, totally
having wet dreams about mermaids.
Just because every girl-kiss was a performance
doesn’t mean I didn’t try to make it mean
something else for myself.
I did get to kiss in a tunnel under
the train tracks once.
That was cool.
She liked me for a while before it happened.
Until she went all Lola and damaged
my already complex-as-fuck ideology
regarding lesbianism.
Luckily, I like to have options.
Easiest is best.
You can do the crossword and discuss
politics at someone else’s kitchen table.
In fact, when I’m gone for good,
my designated spot for home-cooked delicacies
will simply store antiques and vintage toys.
Special use of the oven and maybe
my head will eventually rest in there too.
I wanna be as pretty as her.
I want to meet all the rigid scientific merits
of beauty.
It looks so easy.
It beats alleged adorable, unfiltered,
with neurodivergent tendencies.
But that shit is a revolving door in one’s mind.
A cyclist stuck in his own purgatory when
all the fuck he wanted was happiness
and lifelong longevity.
Before the hit-and-run indefinitely,
I had a chance at feeling pretty
and sustained.