Em Seely-Katz is the creator of the fashion blog Esque, the News Editor of HALOSCOPE, and a writer, stylist, and anime-watcher about town. You can usually find them writing copy for niche perfume houses or making awful collages at @that.esque on Instagram.
01. Ex-life
Remember when we had an extra son and I liked him in high heels
All because I made love not equal to a girl
Like it’s crazy I don’t know crazier
Than me peeing in secret in the dark.
I’m sorry for being terrified in the perfect skirt.
I know love and why to lie about it.
In my hands I swell way too gently round your nape
And then you think I’m like her but with different little idiocies.
Knowing this I say “I’m unprecedented” when I mean “I’d kill you both”
I face a seeping plastic cup before I open my mouth for you
And that isn’t me. I’ll chew anything I love—
The lack of anything basic in this world
Such as an understanding of how veins would appear
Outside of a small body, like an instance
Of life despised—
The fucking weeping this idea
Should and never does induce
Makes me want to be seen in terms
Of weakness, and it makes me want you
To be holding a knife.
How's it, kissing plaster-dust and pretense
In a shallow pit
Peeling skin off your teeth
Just because she was happy, once, and as a joke
She liked your death.
I have flayed animal days
And a milky, cut mouth
I feel relieved when my favorite part of the light show is over
But look at rotten me
And how nice I’ve been for you.
The joke is thick
Between us
I won’t tell her
That’s real love
And she has no future.
Remnants—you will be what we couldn’t stomach—
Inevitable, not suspicious, but.
How much hurt can you really feel?
I’ll ask again without holding you.
With you I’m thinking
How could you stop looking at me?
Don’t blame me with her fingers in your mouth,
You slept better back then.
How can you be in love and need money?
All these questions in my mouth like the wrong teeth.
When you asked me if I still loved you,
I still didn’t,
Even in your morning flinch
And the sun was behind your head
Like it was about to hit you hard
It got me instead
I came down off everything at once
My eyeballs dropped into my mouth
We had no past,
And I would make sure
No future could threaten me
I would subtract myself
From your idea of love
Because that was too much life for me
And life is small, and I know it.
All because I made love not equal to a girl
Like it’s crazy I don’t know crazier
Than me peeing in secret in the dark.
I’m sorry for being terrified in the perfect skirt.
I know love and why to lie about it.
In my hands I swell way too gently round your nape
And then you think I’m like her but with different little idiocies.
Knowing this I say “I’m unprecedented” when I mean “I’d kill you both”
I face a seeping plastic cup before I open my mouth for you
And that isn’t me. I’ll chew anything I love—
The lack of anything basic in this world
Such as an understanding of how veins would appear
Outside of a small body, like an instance
Of life despised—
The fucking weeping this idea
Should and never does induce
Makes me want to be seen in terms
Of weakness, and it makes me want you
To be holding a knife.
How's it, kissing plaster-dust and pretense
In a shallow pit
Peeling skin off your teeth
Just because she was happy, once, and as a joke
She liked your death.
I have flayed animal days
And a milky, cut mouth
I feel relieved when my favorite part of the light show is over
But look at rotten me
And how nice I’ve been for you.
The joke is thick
Between us
I won’t tell her
That’s real love
And she has no future.
Remnants—you will be what we couldn’t stomach—
Inevitable, not suspicious, but.
How much hurt can you really feel?
I’ll ask again without holding you.
With you I’m thinking
How could you stop looking at me?
Don’t blame me with her fingers in your mouth,
You slept better back then.
How can you be in love and need money?
All these questions in my mouth like the wrong teeth.
When you asked me if I still loved you,
I still didn’t,
Even in your morning flinch
And the sun was behind your head
Like it was about to hit you hard
It got me instead
I came down off everything at once
My eyeballs dropped into my mouth
We had no past,
And I would make sure
No future could threaten me
I would subtract myself
From your idea of love
Because that was too much life for me
And life is small, and I know it.
02. —
You were bad
Forever so that
I could be good
One time. Once
I became good,
We learned it
Could not be
Undone.