on monday i pull the 7 of swords and have a riddle to solve. the great question: am i my life? what do i do now? the one on the left has practical answers and we hate her. the one on the right doesn't speak at all. you and the others stroll down the hallway shouting: WAKE UP, and the lady stirs. an epic side-eye. she writes: come back in 3 hours. 18 weeks. 5 years. but it's past 2pm. we're on our deathbed wondering and regretting, and she rolls over and coughs: no one told you to listen to me.
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on thursday i pull the lovers and laugh because this shit's ridiculous. what sewer-dwelling pizza rat slides up the subway stairs to squint in daylight, laughing at me? all my energy poured into living recklessly, feeling warm despite my cold cold feet. the sonnets in my ears (or is it hands?), the sorrows on my wrists. my earrings are knives for exactly the right reason, to sway and scratch, and scar[e], and sway.
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on thursday i pull the ten of swords but barely because my fingers are trembling.
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on sunday i draw the seven of pentacles and it's time to settle the score. i'm at the kitchen table balancing my checkbook in a hurricane. the soil is clay here and nothing washes away entirely. i pay attention to details and decimals and even remember how to conjure long division, the most earthly, substantial form of math. the webbing of clay between my fingers as i scramble out. the way my claws sink in, and in, and in.
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on thursday i draw the moon and slip into something more comfortable. the vast uncertain is a forest i can really sink my teeth in, and it's perhaps been days. i woke up at 10 pm, and the moon hung low and round like a belly. the way a woman walks into the ocean. the chorus of trees at her back.
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on saturday i pull the emperor and laugh, because it's all within my control. these maddening feelings, this uncontrollable burst, it's all a trick. really i am walking, directly, through the doorway marked "want" with my eyes open as is the rule. i click on the lights. i prepare to rest awhile. bless bureaucracies that brought me to this moment. what would i do with a wish but waste it? when all i desire is firmly in my hands.
Lauren Hunter is the author of HUMAN ACHIEVEMENTS (Birds, LLC 2017). Her voice can be found inside the Poetry Jukebox in New York's East Village, on the experimental track AM Radio by Marselle, and in poems and interviews recently published in The Recluse, Jubilat, Nasty Galaxy & Entropy. Lauren currently lives in her hometown of Durham, North Carolina.