fake horoscopes: february 29th-march 6th
honoring a time honored tradition of poets who take a stab at astrology
what better way to honor a fake day (february 29th) with a series of fake horoscopes?
time is (clearly) not real. astrology, however, is. these astrologies, however, are not real. but in another, deeper, way, they are.
other items of interest that fall along the real/not real dichotomy:
birds — real. human children — not real. blowjobs — made up. getting your ass ate from behind bent over on the counter — entirely real. god — both real and not. heaven — real, but not the one you’re thinking of. hell — other people, so, real. existentialism — real to the point of being scary. geminis — realer than any of the rest of us, i’m afraid. the universe coming into existence, forming life and light and death and darkness, birthing humans from the long-simmering primordial soup, humans inventing agriculture, humans inventing religion, humans inventing sex toys, humans inventing cocaine and vicodine and children’s television and developing intricate society and ritual to touch one another and form community and bonds, surviving over tens of thousands of years through the harshest circumstances imaginable while the red thread of fate stitches us back into one another over & over & over again, like adam’s rib calling back to him through eve’s own skin, all of that just for you to meet your one true undying love over tinder — delusional. mitmita on popcorn — real as fuck. trying to become a successful solo pop star after the age of 25 — sad!!! but unfortunately real for many people. aging — fake, but also not fake. the self — an illusion. time — a government conspiracy in collaboration with Big Time to sell more watches. schizophrenia — probably more real than anything else on this list. how the mainstream western medical model views schizophrenia — approximately 0.5% real, with the possibility to option that percentage up to 1% if things start to improve. having a life-sustaining crush on your cutest coworker as a declarative protest against entropy and capitalism and your owners not knowing how to properly run a front-of-house team: true as fuck. lip filler // cheek filler // “preventative” botox — not only not real but also morally reprehensible. making the argument that actually, injecting shit into your face to make you look more fuckable is a feminist stance — kill yourself. music by the chainsmokers — painfully unreal, but made all the more painful by people pretending like it has any legitimate claims to realness. being a bitch to get what you want — equally real and fake. writing nonsense — truth. deleting all your dating apps because you’ve given up — too real. locking eyes with someone on the subway and thinking about them for three years afterward — delusional, but in a real way. convincing yourself during a manic episode that the guy you fell in love with on a ketamine binge in 2022 is actually still in love with you and therefore going to the store and thrifting a white microfloral marc jacobs dress from the 90s for your inevitable elopement and courthouse wedding after he unblocks you and comes out to colorado to confess his undying love for you — medically and terminally delusional, and no longer in a cute way. looking the best you’ve ever looked in anything in that dress — inevitable, of course.
the evil eye — real. linear time — not actually real, but useful all the same. a linear view of progress — fake, and dangerous to fall victim to. bludgeoning your enemies over the head — probably real but also not advisable. bludgeoning elon musk to death with a blunt object — the realest thing one could possibly ever aspire to do, as well as incredibly sexy. that israel is committing a genocide — real. that we sitting here in this country as our tax dollars go to this genocide without rioting and forcing the machine to come to a stop are all at least partially culpable in the machine of death grinding — also real. writing something very real in the middle of a fake real or not real list and not knowing how to pull the text back to its previous tone — real, but also a skill issue. wondering when you’ll fall in love again — fake. assuming that whoever is meant for you will always find you — real, but in an even realer way, completely fake. not learning how to properly do big winged eyeliner for hooded eyes until you’re nearly 28 — iconic, actually. not trying to come up with a homerun-hitter conclusive statement for your real/not real paragraphs and instead just accepting that, like life, writing can be more exciting in the middle than in the end — maybe not real, maybe not unreal, but definitely wise.
aries (march 21st-april 19th): a clock larger and smaller than infinity. the flaky crust of a pastry, undone by desire. what i’m saying is, go to bed earlier and maybe you’ll be able to see all the ways that you’ve been going insane.
taurus (april 20th-may 20th): mopping the floors and taking out the trash doesn’t make you the hero. it might, however, make you at least bearable to be around, not least of all to yourself.
gemini (may 21st-june 20th): a river of words past boiling temperatures, except when they hit the air, they freeze — now would be a good time to consider how much you need to speak versus how much you need to start collecting burn resistant material to swathe your life in.
cancer (june 21st-july 22nd): it’s never the right time, but then again it’s never the wrong time. then again, time isn’t real. you will find your future in a thrift store next to something you take a picture of to laugh at later. nobody will be laughing by the time you realize what you have to do.
leo (july 23rd-august 22nd): you keep swiping at the bee hive for honey and acting confused when a bunch of angry wasps fall on your head. stop that. you will break a treasured mug and weep profusely before dinner. you will fall asleep contentedly before your head hits the pillow. all of this can exist all at once.
virgo (august 23rd-september 22nd): you keep saying you’re going to change, but nobody holds you accountable. that’s because you’ve reverse-engineered your life so that anyone who even dares to suggest otherwise is thrown out without so much as a mock trial. let your friends call you on your bullshit. let your bullshit help you choose who to call your friends.
libra (september 23rd-ocobter 22nd): bad internet connection and zero new matches on hinge — good luck. when you stop running from the full devastation of small things, you will (maybe) be able to excavate a worthwhile personality from the ruins of your pretend self. when you see a mourning dove, you’ll know it’s time to move.
scorpio (october 23rd-november 21st): whenever you finish wallowing in self pity, you’ll find that the world has an extraordinary amount of things it needs done. too bad you’ve been wallowing in self pity for so long you don’t remember how to do any of the things that your fellow humans need from you.
sagittarius (november 22nd-december 21st): poetry is never going to come and announce itself to your face the way you walk into a room and announce your presence to everyone there so that they know it’s time to give you attention. once you learn to be subtle with life, life will be subtle back with you.
capricorn (december 22nd-january 20th): it’s important to remember when you’re in the middle of monologuing at someone that the someone you are monologuing at is in fact a person. show some mercy this week capricorn. god knows we could all use it.
aquarius (january 21st-february 18th): the color purple, a ribbon thinner than a wave of light, and two dusty black rooks from your grandpa’s chess set — this does not constitute a personality. it does, however, constitute the beginning of an outfit. wear it the way autumn leaves wear the nine am sunlight.
pisces (february 19th-march 20th): nobody else will ever find your stories as interesting as you do. you can solve this by resolving to actually make art that’s worth engaging with, and by using the brain cells you have left after you ruined most of them sniffing glue in high school art class.
☯ may you take these horoscopes as exactly as seriously as you need to to have the week you need to have. may you never make two pieces of toast and only once they’ve both finished toasting realize you only have enough butter for one toast. may all your love stories remain unfinished, and may all your manic thrift store finds translate well in the light of day. may all your mean thoughts only be temporary, unless you need the true ones to last a little longer so that you can actually change. and may you be able to differentiate between the petty, myopic cruelties we pay almost unwittingly on ourselves, and the thoughts that actually need time to gestate. may your leap day be full of frogs, toads, and other jumping creatures of the land and sea. ☯
and may we never let the grinding boot of death push us down into the place the bootwearers most wish us to be.
rest in absolute eternal power aaron bushnell.
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