Scorpio Mars

The perspective this story is written in is an attempt at expressing what life can be like for a person with their MARS in SCORPIO. If you have that placement, let me know what you think. If you do not have that placement, do you relate to any thoughts expressed by this character?

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Twenty-seven feet outside of the shopping center, I am pouring vodka into my coffee. As I walk home for the day, an older man walking ahead of me takes glances behind him every few minutes. This is what I keep saying about perception. In his world, I am likely a soldier from a memory he does not remember. All he knows is he shouldn’t trust me. Every time I pull down my mask the warm, slobbery breath of my inner self releases into the world. When people are good at things they forget to try new things. I am a proficient painter, but for January I am a drunk writer.

I avoided my inevitable descent into writing as long as I could. The moment anything special happened to me, to my real self, I would begin writing it for my fictional self immediately. This is what she would say or do, I’d think to myself, writing out the actions and dialogue as if it actually happened. Instead, I am more often the quiet one among a crowd, watching but never doing.

Until recently, anyways. I always hated my English classes in school. When you have a writer’s soul, you know pretty early on. And when you know pretty early on, you hate English class. The way they drag out meaning like a saltwater taffy, stretching it as thin as it can go without breaking. I was always sure that the meaning was right there in the words. The old white men of literature will always insinuate that being drunk has anything to do with it. I think they were just poor writers, scared of their own criticism. I get drunk solely for the unusual tilt of my body on Earth’s gravitational pull, and maybe to say and do things I otherwise wouldn’t.

I am grateful for the turn I take that does not align with the old man’s path. He has been anxious for a mile or two now, I can tell. It isn’t an unfamiliar feeling for me; I’ve been trying to trust humans more though. That’s why on my walk home, as the vodka boils in my stomach like a witch’s cauldron, I rip a phone number from a sheet of paper taped to a tree. The paper said: SICK OF BEING LIFE’S BITCH? I think it is a pretty aggressive advertising decision, but I’m only thinking on the behalf of other passing people, since clearly it works for me. That’s the problem in the first place; I’m always thinking on the behalf of everyone else. I’ve spent my entire walk home, regardless of the flowers and trees and sky, thinking about my existence’s impact on the man I was accidentally following. That’s why when I see the paper on the tree, I don’t think twice. I rip a number off.

Now that I am alone on the path, I feel inclined to get the call over with. I hate phone calls, especially ones that benefit me personally. The number is 555-2704, which is probably another reason why I picked it up. Or probably the reason why they chose that phone number, aiming it towards people like me who crave spiritual synchronicities more than food. Here is another thing I dislike about my mindset; I am always so sure that people are intentionally doing things to get reactions they want from me. This is one of those perceptions that comes from a person assuming that everyone else lives life the way they do.

“Sick of being life’s bitch?” a woman’s voice echoes through the phone. I am caught off guard, unaware that I have actually gone through with the phone call. “Are you or are you not?”

“I am,” I say, immediately flinching at the stupidity of what I had said. She hadn’t given me enough time to rephrase it in a way that made me seem less hopeless. “I mean- I mean that I’m just curious about what you’re offering. That’s all.”

I am moving too quickly towards the entrance of my neighborhood, so I take a quick left and walk through the baseball field. It is muddy from last night’s storm, but I don’t mind. I’ve always liked the way my shoes sink into the Earth and open it back up with each step. The woman on the phone hasn’t said anything in over a minute now.

“In which way does life make you it’s bitch?” she asks. At this point, I figure there was no point in lying. This is a stranger on the phone, and no matter how much I think so, I know she isn’t targeting me. In fact, I am sure she has no idea who I am at all. So what if I take this seriously, then? Ever since apathy became such a safe bet, I’ve found myself translating every naturally occurring thought I have into something else, something witty and unrevealing of my true self.

“I’m pretty sure I exist solely for everyone else,” I say. Speaking the truth is like vomiting when you’re drunk, it tastes so disgusting but feels so good. Maybe after all this honesty, I’ll stop by the gas station and get drunk on overpriced wine and ramen.

“Not the first time I’ve heard that one,” she replies. “So, what is so great about these people that you can’t stop serving them for free? Please say at the very least there’s good sex involved.”

I tell myself that she is not trying to fluster me on purpose, that sometimes people can just talk this openly about things that most humans hide deep within themselves. As soon as I remind myself this, I wonder if I am just projecting my fear of vulnerability. The amount of thoughts running through my mind at any given second is exhausting, and anyways, I’m trying to reply as the pace of a normal person.

“Compromising my self worth for others has nothing to do with sex.” I say it too quickly; I am hit with the realization that this is the exact problem just seconds after the sentence ends. The woman on the other side of the line laughs. “Okay, okay, that’s not true at all. Look, there’s a lot of reasons I’m like this. Sex is just one of them.”

“I know, kid, trust me,” she says.

“Kid? You sound like you’re my age.”

“Do I? You sound younger than me.”

“Forget it,” I say. “My ego is just getting in the way of the actual conversation we’re having.”

“What conversation are we having?”

“About me compromising myself for others.”

“Is that what we were talking about?” she says in a way that I can hear her smile.

“What are you, a therapist or something?”

“Want me to charge you?”

“You still haven’t told me what it is that you do!” I say, louder than anything else.

I’ve been standing in the middle of the baseball field the entire conversation, letting my heavy human body sink into the wettest part of the field. It’s chilly out today, but I can barely feel it. The breath of my rapid, desperate replies to this woman warms me up. Or maybe, it occurs to me that I might be drunk now.

“Do you already get drunk in the middle of the day?” she asks.

“Hey, don’t go reading my mind without my permission, okay? That is very rude.”

She laughs and says, “Have you already given me access to your subconscious mind?”

She’s right. I’ve always believed that anyone who can connect to us, like “coincidental” mind-reading, must be granted access to us. I have shields up against many, many people. How did I let her through after just ten minutes of conversation? Or did I let her in before, when I saw the sign?

“I trust my intuition if it has let you in,” I reply, my voice no longer shaky but flat, confident. “While you’re in my head, what can you tell me about it?”

“It’s not that you live for everyone else. The truth is you really do live for yourself. At the end of the day, you’re going to support yourself the most, get what you need from others, and follow that vision board you have inside your mind. Do you really think you got to be born into a life where you never need to have hard, honest conversations about yourself? You were willing to embrace your identity since you were a child, but the things that are deeper than that have been dormant since you were born. You may be confident, but boy are you full of shame. You’re ashamed of the best parts of yourself too. Maybe it’s not all about sex, but it’s the idea itself, the things no one else will talk about are the things burning you from the inside out, right? Then burn.”

“Fuck, that’s dramatic,” I say.

“The truth can be as dramatic or simple as you want, because it either is the truth or it isn’t.”

“Well, thanks for the pep talk.”

“That’s enough for the day?”

“Definitely.”

“Well, you have my number,” she says. She hangs up on me, of course.

I wake up in my bed. The sun has set without me. I remember the weird details of my dream. My dreams are never usually so realistic, so in depth with dialogue. I reach for my phone, still in my pocket. Where my phone should be is something else. A sheet of paper. 555-2704.

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Book A Reading

I will not be doing a reading for all twelve signs today since I was booked for a personal reading. Don’t worry, next blog post will have a reading for every sign. Tarot readings, especially when involving other spiritual practices like astrology, can be tiring. I want to ensure the accuracy of my readings by taking my time with each one. If you would like to book a personal reading, please refer to my, “Book a Reading,” page for more information.

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