He reads you your fortune in a way you never wanted to know, cigarette in one hand, coffee in another, a black sweatshirt on because he needs a uniform. He encourages everyone to wear a uniform. I don't got time in the morning to look beautiful. Take me as a I am, just like I take you are you are. No one ever really changes, we just learn how to deal with our fuck ups a little, if we're lucky. Don't be the kid whose parents took you to Urban Outfitters in Chelsea when you were 12 and cry wolf, cry a world of pain. I got some backbreaking work for that, you know? Real breaking that'll make Jesus fucking weep and beg for mercy. Oh wait, he already did.
Sagittarius: You want to go out and have everyone adore you, like you're some fucking movie star, but really, you just want to write "Sleeping Forever: A Memoir" because you're already goddamn dead.
Capricorn: Just eat already. I'm tired of hearing you whine about nothing, you motherfucker. We're all just trying to survive, to live. Stop planning your life like a bad B-movie.
Aquarius: Your love story is never painting the right picture. Life's full of pictures, kid, just open your eyes and stop looking at your phone. Instagram isn't going to love you. These people aren't your friends. Do you believe most people are good? How did your mom let you out of the house? Jesus.
Pisces: You left a headband in a boy's apartment and hated him so much, you never texted him to get it back. Can't blame you. Who wants to talk to a guy who didn't have the smarts to want to use a condom? He doesn't respect you. Move on.
Aries: Stop crying over the spilled milk your mom spilled 40 years ago. Stop having sex with men you hate just to wipe the milk away. Wipe it away yourself.
Taurus: But who else?
Aries: I think about your name and can’t breathe but I don’t need to breathe, not right now. Is it a heart attack?
Gemini: The ghost is gone. The room went silent, like your dead mother.
Cancer: You conjured a ghost, by accident, but now you don't know what to do. You left your own body, a few times, watching yourself from below—a dark expanse destructing beautifully, an eerie globe full of different times and spaces and so many yous in them. Or at least, that's how you felt or something.
Leo: Always someone on your rotation. Are you never bored, baby?
Virgo: Find God on Amazon.
Scorpio: Men who think they have somewhere to be are the cruelest.
Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York. Joanna is the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015) Marys of the Sea (The Operating System, 2017), Xenos (Agape Editions, 2016), Sexting Ghosts (Unknown Press, 2018), No(body) (Madhouse Press, 2019), and #Survivor (The Operating System, 2020). They are the editor of A Shadow Map: Writing By Survivors of Sexual Assault (CCM, 2017), and received a MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Joanna is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, as well as the senior managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine.