fake horoscopes: march 14th-march 20th
or the story of the nothing, and how it ate up everything
once upon a time there was a girl made of nothingness, which is another way of saying once upon a time there was a nothing. there was a nothing and the nothing was so hungry that it ate up everything that wasn’t a nothing. the nothing got so big that there was nothing left outside of the nothing, so that one day the nothing woke up and realized there was nothing to eat and it didn’t know what to do. what would it feed itself with? what songs would it sing without the songs of the world? what sleep would it sleep, with nothing left for dreams? the nothing wanted to make a nest to sleep in, and a sailboat to sail the seas in, and a body to pilot the boat in. but there was nothing left for the nothing to make a body from, so the nothing had to pull something from the great big hole that leads from the nothing’s world that it had accidentally eaten empty, to the world where the something lived. the nothing paused and gathered all its strength and tried to conjure the world, like when you’ve fallen asleep on the lower bunk in your cousin’s room at a family party, and you wake up not quite sure where you are, and for a moment you’re entirely alone. but then you open your eyes more and through the darkness of the hall you can still see a small glowing light, and when you squint you can make out the distant sound of muffled laughter, and pitter-patters, and from underneath the door comes the smallest shadow of people’s shoes, stepping on and around the small sliver of light that glows gently between the bottom of the door and the carpet, and like this you know the world goes on.
unfortunately, the nothing’s nothingness had gotten so big that it had seeped through the wall from the world the nothing had reduced into nothing, into the world that had previously held the something, so that there was nothing left in the room of somethings that the nothing had been trying to pull something from. i know you would like to hear a happy ending to this story, but there isn’t one. there’s just the nothing, and its nothingness, and the end of all stories that comes from the extinguishing of the everything.
and now, the moment you’ve all been waiting breathlessly for since this time last week — fake horoscopes, for your terribly real enjoyment.
aries (march 21st-april 19th): you will find yourself beside a lake with a beehive and a smokestack for company. when you are ready to let go of the birds inside of you, the entire sky will alight and enliven. don’t mistake the song of a beautiful rare bird for yet another noise you’re supposed to drown out.
for aries — “the tiger” by nael, age 6
taurus (april 20th-may 20th): the world is a haunted house and you are an ornery old man wanting to get home in time for supper, which will be the same tv dinner you have eaten in the same chair in front of the same six o’clock news you’ve been eating and sitting in and watching for thirty years now, except instead of a haunted house it’s the world, and instead of a ghost it’s just you.
for taurus — this snippet from “once a lady told me” by nikki giovanni
gemini (may 21st-june 20th): this week you will have to choose between living life on your own terms and doing what the rest of the world wants for you. just kidding, gemini, you’ve literally never done anything that the world expects from you. learn to stand on your hands or balance china dishes on your nose. hang upside down from the top bar of a swing set like a bat out of hell and kick all the little shits trying to swing down underneath you. fuck them kids. and fuck you too, gemini.
for gemini — “wish” by w.s. merwin
cancer (june 21st-july 22nd): oh cancer. what are we gonna do with you? just kidding — the real question is what you are going to do with yourself. of course you have no idea what to do. and of course that is the worst lie of all, when in fact you do know exactly what you need to. you’ve just been avoiding it your entire life.
for cancer — this snippet from “out beyond ideas” by rumi
leo (july 23rd-august 22nd): you are what we are in the astrological community call a huge fucking brat. it’s terminal, && there’s no cure. you’re going to die from a terminal case of brattiness. the good news is you can be cute when you want to. the bad news is you’re doing it for all the wrong reasons. there’s a difference between wanting to be cute so that other people will think you are cute and then like you and buy you things and tell you how cute you are all the time, and just being cute because the world needs more cute things. learn the difference and commit to whatever rare flash of clarity you can come up with.
for leo — this piece called “brat” which nowhere on google i can find the author of
virgo (august 23rd-september 22nd): there is a falling star atop a falling sky in a universe that only ever wants to push upward. find the line where the treeline meets something bigger than your fear of inadequacy. start there.
for virgo — “the conditional” by ada limon
libra (september 23rd-ocobter 22nd): you will never learn to ride a bike unless you actually decide to leave your house and get on a bike. taking peloton classes does not count as bike riding.
for libra — “fear” by lydia davis
scorpio (october 23rd-november 21st): okay, the world is ending and it’s so unbearably hard to be you. we get that. but have you considered everyone else’s world is also always ending, and the rest of us don’t go around every day making it everybody else’s problem? learn how to count your breath. learn how to do a proper pigeon pose or sun salutation. actually, don’t do that. if you’re going to complain all the time, you could at least have the decency to learn how to be funny about it.
for scorpio — “the voice of god” by mary karr
sagittarius (november 22nd-december 21st): this week you will have the choice between a line of cocaine and a slice of key lime pie made by grandma. obviously, you should choose the cocaine. surely this time it will be fun and vibrant and full of fascinating, intellectual conversation, and worth the hangover and the nosebleeds and the disappointing grandma thing. put on an album by a band nobody knows. commit to doing something interesting for at least five minutes a day.
for sag — “dinosaurs smelled magnolias” by dalton day
capricorn (december 22nd-january 20th): oh, capricorn. i know you’re so tired of carrying the world on your shoulders. i know you’re just exhausted having to come in and fix everything all of the time. but have you considered that nobody ever asked you to fix it? have you considered that people might want you to just leave them alone? there is no such thing as a tragedy, only comedies that haven’t had enough time to ripen into being funny. learn where your life is and then sit in the middle.
for capricorn — this untitled piece by haiku master matsuo basho
aquarius (january 21st-february 18th): there is nothing about you that can’t be explained by some offhanded dream you cast off from a turkey wishbone on thanksgiving in the second grade, or the fact that the entire universe is just the hallucination of two sixteen-year-olds on acid. spend an afternoon in the library. learn to weave together something worth living for out of string, and pocket lint, and penny dust. the earth doesn’t necessarily have anything much more substantial going for it anyway.
for aquarius — “poem” by ron padgett
pisces (february 19th-march 20th): the world is water and you are stuck on a wooden dock lodged into the side of a lake. you are drying out in the sun, because you belong in the water, but instead of getting back into the lake you just complain about how tragic it is that someone came and dumped you onto the dock. get off the fucking dock. the rest of us can only hear you complain about your life so much before we just leave you to shrivel up in the sun altogether.
and for pisces — “lying in a hammock at william duffy’s farm in pine island, minnesota” by james wright
say there isn’t anything left to say. say nothing came out. say it was time to go, and i kept looking between you and the doorway, and i couldn’t find a place to put my mouth. say i could feel the heat, the heat between the world outside and the world within. say you would forgive me, my speechlessness, the messiness of this lonely human heart. say you would subscribe to me anyways.
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