fake horoscopes: april 11th-17th
fragments, eclipse season, and the full swing of mercury retrograde
aries (march 21st-april 19th): this week, a thrift store jacket and an act of divine mercy. stop telling on yourself in situations where people want to think the best of you. there is nothing to practice but self restraint. show up before you’re supposed to. takes notes when someone tells you how they want to be loved. you’re never going to have it all, at least not all at once. but would you even want it, anyways?
taurus (april 20th-may 20th): a bounced check and a political demonstration; a box of old cereal and the ever-creeping feeling that something may not be right. this week, all, you have to do is learn how to say the words “i don’t know.” when you admit that you’re only human, the universe rushes in to fill out the rest. set your alarm for the witching hour and for your favorite cartoon reruns. when you can bridge the gap between the beauty and the bloodshed, you’ll find a home already carved out for you in the nook.
gemini (may 21st-june 20th): a photograph that looks suspiciously like someone you could have been, if only you had been loved properly. a printed fax machine message that just says HELP ME that falls onto the floor as you walk past. the world could be your mirror, if you let it. the world could be your bone to gnaw on. try sending the message first instead of waiting for your other half to ask you. when you make yourself fully available to being alive, you leave much less room for stagnation.
cancer (june 21st-july 22nd): a sword pulled from a stone and an easily impressed audience do not make you the voice of a generation. this week, push back on the impulse to posture yourself as a minute authority on things you aren’t actually sure you know that much about. when the sword feels too heavy for your hands, consider the fact that maybe you don’t need to grow your hands. maybe you just need a smaller sword.
leo (july 23rd-august 22nd): hell hath no fury like a single leo scorned. instead of lining up your row of next potential victims, consider the fact that you could easily become someone worth having around even when you’re not taking all your prospective friends to bed. there are mountains, and there are molehills, and then there are just plain old regular mondays. learn to ride the waves somewhere in the middle. a life spent out on the edge is fine and dandy, but not everyone has the courage to always meet you there.
virgo (august 23rd-september 22nd): this week, your supernatural instincts falter on high when called to look up the ceiling and judge the light beams from the angels. it’s a trick question, virgo, but then again so is everything. abandon the pretense of knowing what makes a moment spiritual vs holy vs worthy of the slop pile. write it all down. write it all away into your little notebooks. then, when the time comes to reflect, pull out the reality of your experience and start to build an understanding from there. the second you understand where you are, it’s already gone.
libra (september 23rd-ocobter 22nd): a purple riverbed, and a silo of grain: these are the two points that your life will oscillate between. you can ask for the infinite constellations, but the chances are the angel that answers your call off the universal hold line will tell you all their extra super infinite infinity packages are sold on. find something tangible to put your hands on. the only life worth living is the one you can actually touch and see.
scorpio (october 23rd-november 21st): a book of fake names, and a vegetable garden rotting slowly in the earth's forgotten backyard: this week you will have the choice between revenge and reward. your reward will not be shiny, or new, or even very rewarding. your reward will be hard work. but after the work, after the sweat stains, after the inconvenient mishaps of a land well tilled: cherries, tart as marine wildlife. heirloom tomatoes, green like a crescent moon. plums, dropping their pitlings into the wild swampy wet below. this could be your life, be your calling, if you let it.
sagittarius (november 22nd-december 21st): flash cards, and flashes of lightning, and the small zipping light of a once-dead firefly: the world gives itself to you in fire and quickness, if you can learn the trick of keeping your eyes open to see the light flash. no cameras necessary, no prior experience required. just a small choice, and a commitment to that choice, and the two eyes already in your head.
capricorn (december 22nd-january 20th): a patch of dirt once called the most promising land in america. a single fencepost, half dusted into charcoal in the darkness. these are the inheritances of a life spent striving. if you could only learn to wait. if you could only learn patience. if you could only learn the song of a single swan or butterfly, silent as an echo, starry as an unlit night. your unbecoming is so close to you. let it possess you. let it take you somewhere you never thought you’d need to be.
aquarius (january 21st-february 18th): this week, an island in the reeds and a pawn swapping out for the queen. your petty rage and misfortunes are the least interesting and appreciable thing about you. set your desk up anew. release the knots of stemmy rose leaves and tulip bulbs back into the compost heap. when you let the earth guide your aimless wanderings, you’ll find your wandering has a way of bringing you back home.
pisces (february 19th-march 20th): a butterfly sanctuary and the continental divide: your life could be so big or so small, if you let it. the size of your ambition, though daunting, doesn’t really have any teeth. aren’t you tired of trying to swim all the way back up the mountain? doesn’t the present have something ineffable and present, tangent to the rest of it, that could be a substitute for your old half-furious dreams?
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