There’s a five star hotel down the road. It looks like an abandoned castle, something that could have a graveyard behind it. But the stars are all there. Some say the owner plucked them from the sky because it would be easier than earning them. Nobody knows who he is but there can’t be that many people in the world who can pluck stars from the sky. An old lady who can see the hotel from her bedroom window says the stars live in the hotel sign for the whole month except during the full moon. That’s when they go visit their families up in the sky. Or maybe just the moon. Maybe the stars are in love with the moon, or the other way around. All the old lady knows is that she saw the stars leaving late at night and when she woke up in the morning they were there again. Nobody knows who the owner of the hotel is. Maybe someone should ask the stars.
Taurus:
The girl wants to be someone else when she grows up. She doesn’t know who. Sometimes she says she wants to be something else. She doesn’t know what either. All she knows is something’s not right when she looks in the mirror. On some days, her hair is the wrong colour; on others, it’s her feet that are too big. “I have too many hands”, she complains, “and not enough eyes. I was born to have more eyes.” Her parents think she’s going insane, she makes less sense day by day. But then, when the girl is 21 years old, to the exact second, her bedroom door is closed. The windows are shut, the father knows the lightbulb in the lamp doesn’t work, but there seems to be light coming out from under the door. No key will open it but suddenly it creaks. The light changes colour. No wonder she didn’t know what she was born to be. It’s staring right at her parents and they don’t know what it is either.
Gemini:
Four hundred years ago, this house wasn’t here. Two days ago, it wasn’t here either. But here it is now. Nobody saw it being built. Each of the neighbours blinked and suddenly realized it was there, each in their own time. Maybe it was there all along and it suddenly became noticeable, but the children from the house across the street distinctly remember riding their bikes across the vacant lot where the house is now, just the day before. The most curious thing about all this is how fast rumours are created. After one night in visible existence, dozens of them are already going around. When I went outside this morning, this house was said to have been the scene of five different but equally violent murders, three suicides and one very suspicious noise complaint. It’s a mystery who created these rumours, but one of those suicides was the old man who volunteered to be the first one to go into the house after lunch, and he’s been there for a really long time. I wonder if it has anything to do with the gunshot I just heard.
Cancer:
Once upon a time, a sailor went under the sea. That time was five hundred years ago. His ship was being attacked and there was no salvation to be seen. He forsook all his gold and the love of his life and jumped to the water. He was never seen again. The love of his life, I mean. The sailor’s skeleton lies in a museum. Once upon a different time, a human cannonball went up in the air. That time was a hundred years ago. The circus was having trouble, nobody bought tickets anymore. So this particular human cannonball said he was going to meet the little green men and tell them of the human race. He was never seen again. His cannon lies in a museum. Coincidentally, the same museum as the sailor’s skeleton.
Once upon a third time, a diver went under the sea. That time was five hours ago. He doesn’t know it, but he’s about to discover the gold the sailor forsook. He’ll keep it a secret and live a long life as a rich man, but his son will lose it all gambling after he dies. That money will never be seen again. Once upon a fourth time, an astronaut went up in the air. That time was an hour ago. I’ve been watching the sky waiting for him to come back but I can’t see him anywhere. He only had oxygen for thirty minutes. I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again.
Leo:
“We want five million dollars by ten o’clock tonight”, they said, “nobody else but you or you’re screwed.” “No schemes or attempts at being clever”, they added at the end, “if we spot a single sentient creature who isn’t you at the drop spot, you better make peace with yourself because you won’t survive long enough to get back home.” “Await further instructions.” “The drop will go down in the far north end of the park. Put the bag with the money in the trashcan and leave”, they told us, “we’ll keep our end of the deal after we count the money. Wait by the newspaper stand.” Everything seemed to be going fine, if you ignore the fact that I was losing my mind. “Five million dollars in unmarked bills”, they demanded, “we’ll be waiting.” Who the fuck steals a dead body? And how did they know? It was my first kill in years.
Virgo:
Marcie stole somethin’. She stole it fast and she stole it good. She ran to the library and went to the encyclopedia section. She was so young. Marcie hid what she stole. She hid it fast and she hid it good. Down here in the south we don’t see girls like Marcie. So young. So small. Had her whole life ahead of her. There’s no reason for girls like Marcie to be stealin’ things. Nor hidin’ them for that matter. But Marcie stole somethin’ and she hid it in an encyclopedia in the library. After that day, Marcie had this look on her face, like she wasn’t no young little girl no more. And when the library burned down she stood there screamin’, lookin’ at the fire. Cryin’ at it, more like. We only found out she’d stolen somethin’ that day. We asked “why’re you cryin’ Marcie?” and she whispered all low “I stole somethin’. It was there”. We didn’t ask much after that, the poor girl was heartbroken. Whatever it is she stole, It had to be somethin’ important. There’d never been a murder in this here town before the day she said she stole it, but since Marcie stole that somethin’, there’s been one every other week.
Libra:
“We’ve been walking for miles. The children are tired. Please, let us stop. We need to go back. Please, let us stop. Please. Why can’t we go back? The sandstorm is getting closer, the children won’t make it. My children won’t make it. Please, let us go back. We need to go back. You’re a mother too, please understand. We need to go back. I don’t deserve this.”
“Then you shouldn’t have done what you did.”
“I did it for my family. Haven’t you ever done bad things for your family? Horrible things? Things you know are unforgivable but you can’t bring yourself to regret them? That’s what people do for family. Please let us stop. It’s for their sake too.”
“You know the rules. There’s too many people. Criminals go into the storm and take their families with them. It’s the way things are. You’re a criminal, you go into the storm.”
“...Does it look like the storm is heading towards the city or is that just me?”
“You’re the criminal. You go warn them. You can go back.”
Scorpio:
Some days look like the night started to leave but decided to stay with its foot behind the door. It just stays there and the light never fully comes. Humans say it’s normal. “Some days the sun just doesn’t shine.” There’s no light shining on their skin or on plants. For a whole day, once in a while, nothing grows. Nothing lives. But they think it’s normal. You probably think it’s normal too. But not the other way around. What would happen if the night hours came and the day didn’t leave? If the light kept shining at midnight and one in the morning and two until it was daytime again? What would you think? What would you do if the moon never showed up? If you never saw the moon again? Maybe it’s right behind you. Don’t look. When there’s light there’s shadow too, and scary thinks lurk in the shadows, feeding on the daylight, among other things. That’s why the day never stays for too long.
Sagittarius:
When I was little we lived in a huge house. I remember thinking “When I grow up big like my parents I’ll have a big house of my own just as big as this one.” It’s been a long time since then. I still live in the same house and I’ve grown just as big as my parents. But the house didn’t. I can no longer fit in some rooms. The doors are too small. Too narrow and too short for me to pass. I fear that one day I’ll wake up and realized I’m trapped in this house forever. It seemed so big when I was a child. Now I know why all my memories of my parents are me watching them in the garden. They didn’t fit. I’m beginning not to fit too. But I can’t leave, I have children here. I can’t afford another house. But I just won’t stop growing. “When I grow up I’ll have a house just as big as this one”, my son tells me.
Capricorn:
Five hundred years it took Daisy to realize she was immortal. Five hundred. What the hell was she thinking?, I asked myself when I heard one of the others tell her. “You are five hundred and twenty years old. You are immortal.” Can’t get clearer than that. Did she think she was just really really healthy? It’s apparently a well known fact that she’s not the sharpest wand in the shop, but she’s not the only witch in the coven, someone should have told her earlier. Hell, I’d only known her for five minutes but she fit right in with the others. They always stand in a neat little line. Pointy hat, pointy nails, pointy nose, pointy nose wart, then Daisy with her pointy fingers asking “who are you? who are you?”, and now me with my pointy hair. I didn’t understand if she kept asking that as a joke or if she was even stranger than I thought. I kept asking myself this until the next morning. I didn’t see anything, but it sounded like Pointy Nose Wart’s voice. “Your name is Daisy. You are five hundred and twenty years old. You are immortal.” And she left the girl standing there, as shocked as the day before. Then she walked into another room and I heard Pointy Nails talk to her. “It’s about time you undid the spell, isn’t it? The girl still wakes up afraid of the Inquisition. At least tell her her real name. Elizabeth.”
Aquarius:
He was here and now he’s gone. He was here five minutes ago and now he isn’t anymore. He’s gone. Forever. He was standing right in front of me. There’s blood everywhere, oh my God there’s blood everywhere. I remember just yesterday we were watching a movie together. We’ve known eachother for so long. Since we were little children. Our parents have known eachother since they were children. And now he’s gone. There’s blood on my dress. He was so beautiful, and now I’m never gonna see him again. I look up and only see the sky. I look in front of me and only see darkness and trees. He’s gone. I look to the ground and- oh there he is. That’s right, I killed him. I almost forgot. Silly me. That’ll teach him not to be a cheater.
Pisces:
Three centuries ago, I died. Two centuries and three hundred and sixty-four days ago, I died again. And again one day later and so on and so forth. It’s a rather nasty way to live, isn’t it? “Pun intended” ha ha. I believe that’s what they call it these days. I remember falling in love with a woman and then failing her in every way imaginable. I was rude, I was cruel. I thought I was the best in the world. But I was in fact in love with her, even though it didn’t seem like it. And oh poor unlucky me, she was a witch. I believe she still is, somewhere, away from me forever. You know how their kind is with punishments. “Eat a rotten apple for the rotten life you have led and rot until the end of days” or something along those lines. They do love their alliterations. I treated her like rotten so now I turn to rotten flesh every day and wake up fine the next morning, ready to rot again. Not very original, is it? But it is vicious. Imagine what she would have done if she had known I had killed her brother. But, you know how it is. He had cheated on a friend of mine, and us women have to “stick together”, as they say. This curse just gives me more time to find all those other cheaters out there. And she thinks she punished me.
I want and cannot find myself
I walk about the perennial yard
and wonder how we got here, how we come back
one year after another and crawl about the hastas,
our lilac-hydrangea bushes running wild with bumblebees and wolf sound
there are moments that take us to other places
you take me to so many places
it is hard to remember where we started out
or ever wanted to end up.
And It feels lonely,
It wants to die one day, to leave a place for someone new,
for something else to grow again
(Some things repeat themselves in the back of my mind
like a ritual. This is one of them: “There is no life
without death. It is time to be alive again.”) and
It keeps on wanting. It cannot find itself.
Lilac-hydrangea bushes in the summer,
Irises in the spring, mandevilla grows on my lips
like a vine and attracts the hummingbirds.
It still sounds so romantic: the strangers in part shadow,
art hanging down the walls like lobelia from the portico,
how I still pronounce the double L’s like Y’s
slowly, mouth rumbling smooth,
sky bound (limite del cielo, limite del cielo)
I search and cannot find myself.
There is no truth in anything but the soul
and I am beginning to think I may not have one.
I feel around in the anatomy, a schema
of limbs and words and tendon locked joints,
who made me? such a decorative thing
I see you like James Potter so when he and Lily got together shes a bit embarrassed cause all the marauders are cheering like fools and James goes up to her and tells her that theyre going to be together forever and at first she rolls her eyes and laughs cause she thinks its just him being cocky but when she looks in his eyes she realises hes deadly serious and so to prove it he steps forward and looks her in the eyes and he tells her that theyll be together forever again and she just smiles
I have forgotten what it feels like to be touched. The world, and all the people in it, are ice cold glasses of water, voracious, some impenetrable silence.
I have forgotten what it feels like to be made from scratch. An egg here and four cups of flour, stir, add extract; make a person with a small voice and narrow feet, make someone whose bones grate together in the winter and is never warm.
I have forgotten what it feels like to be sick. There were times my fevers reached 102 degrees, when I was so hot that my body shook like windows in a thunderstorm- everything clattering together and I became (made of nothing) (almost dead) almost alive.
I become almost alive.What does it mean to be whole?
Headcanon: Enjolras likes to put on his cool face and say “you don’t wanna see me drunk cos I get really deep and philosophical” but in reality what happens is that his speech gets really slurred and he starts mumbling “that’s some fucked-up *hic* fuckin’... capitalist shit” at random objects like a carrot or a kettle
who falls in love at seventeen (you can't, that's what they say) but you ache to love someone, like a jolt in your bones, stare after girls in class with a pit in your stomach (if only i knew you enough to love you if only i knew) stare after boys in the halls (if only)
who falls in love at seventeen (no one does, not really) you've never seen any of it last, your friends have crushes that fade like embers but you've never been close enough to another human being to feel the glow and you think (everything is so empty in me) and you think (i wish. i wish. i wish)
who falls in love at seventeen (don't be ridiculous, sweetheart, you don't even know what love is) mom that's not the point mom i want to know mom i want (you're not old enough to know what you want) i just want to know i just want to know (try on this career like a t-shirt instead, you'd make a lot of money doing this) mom mom mom i don't want that i want to love i want to wake up and love and love and love
who falls in love at seventeen (no one you've ever known) and yet even the crushes have never happened to you (god what are you doing wrong) and you look at the girl in your math class with the beautiful eyes and for the first time you catch yourself thinking if only i could, if only i knew you enough to know what made you laugh, if only i knew how to make my heart love something, anything (you find aromantic online and dismiss it, surely this can't be it, surely if you were aro you wouldn't want so badly to love someone, anyone, anything)
who falls in love at seventeen (not you)
i don’t know how to explain the feeling of wanting so bad but not knowing what it feels like (e.p.)
