Beauty Beneath the Moon

Starting off strong with a short story about a girl whose best friend is the moon. Followed by a reading for each of the signs about what MARS moving into TAURUS will be like!

Warning: This story includes references to sexual acts and drug use.

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Today I’ve decided that I hate writing even though I love it; I hate tea even though I love it; I hate going to therapy even though I love it. And the reason I love all the things I hate is because sometimes they’re simply too good. Sometimes the story I wrote the day before casts a shadow over this one, and this tea is just as sweet as I want it to be so I know future teas may not be this good, and my therapist says exactly what I need to hear making me realize reasons for my feelings that I didn’t think were a problem.

Sometimes in the span of just one morning you grow three inches in emotional height, even though your body twists inward with tension.

I’ve also decided that I hate sleeping, not because I love it but because I actually hate it. I hate it for how much I loved it the past two years, how it was my home away from home. In my dreams I do my laundry, have sex, write books, drive across the country just because I want to. So yeah, I used to go to that place a lot. Recently, though, I’ve started having sex while awake, as well as doing my laundry, writing every day, and planning trips. Then sleep doesn’t seem so great anymore because all the things I loved about it now drip with reality. That’s why tonight I take an adderall, slide a cigarette into my pocket, and go for a walk.

The moon and I used to be good friends but ever since I stopped checking what phase she was in, she’s been kind of distant. Most nights she’s living it up with a couple of clouds, slipping in between them like a drunk girl in a bar, her glow like a palm on my cheek. She doesn’t ever care when I change my astrological routines, but I do. I hate feeling like I use her. Tonight there are no clouds, just her and I and a few street lamps pretending to be as pretty.

“Hi again,” I call up to her, playing with the cigarette in my pocket between my thumb and index finger, feeling the soft paper that wraps the tobacco.

“Are you really about to smoke that?” she says as I walk under the shadow of a tree.

I kind of laugh before I say, “You don’t know me anymore. I’ve changed a lot since those days when I was obsessed with you.”

“I don’t care who you are now,” she says. “Smoking cigarettes is lame. Where’s your usual joint? I’d support that much more.”

“I’m an adult now, I traded joints for cigarettes and shrooms for adderall.”

She has nothing to say.

I imagine myself naked so I can really witness all that hangs on my body. Clothes, including my $3 jeans and a band t-shirt my mom bought me back when we were friends. Vans, too, you know the classic type. In my deep thrifted jean pockets is an almost deceased chapstick, cherry of course, my wallet that would be a disappointment to steal, and a receipt paper with a phone number on it. Everything suddenly feels heavy when I see those numbers.

“How’s therapy?” says the moon. She looks really pretty tonight, as if she’s doing this to me on purpose. I play with the cigarette still.

“Good, good,” I say. “Apparently I tend to talk more about what I think other people feel than what I know I feel. Fun stuff. My self-assigned homework is to be in the moment when I’m feeling something.”

“Okay, pop quiz, what are you feeling right now?” Her light transcends past me and paints a building white.

“Throw all the bad feelings into a pot like seasoning and whatever that tastes like.” I finally decide on pulling the cigarette to my lips when I see a group of men chatting outside of a bar. The cigarette is my weapon; it says, how could I possibly care about you when I don’t even care about myself?

“I’m almost positive that’s not the kind of thing you’d say to your therapist,” says the moon. “I thought we were friends.”

The men all turn theirs heads, watching me drag my mistake three times in the span of a couple steps, as if I were commiting suicide by nicotine at midnight on a Tuesday. Once I’m far enough to let my shoulders drop, I reply to my friend.

“I feel sad, but for the sake of dealing with it I’ve transitioned it into anger so that I can resent the world rather than beg it to love me back.” I can tell she likes my answer because she doesn’t say anything, just turns to eat more sunlight. I wish I could see the sun.

The sum of a street during the night in this city is approximately: (2) taxi cabs, waiting, (3) full dumpsters, and the (2) people scrummaging through them for dinner, (7) rats, and (1) lonely girl. We’re all friends because we’ve chosen to be alive, now, when the rest of the world has succumbed to their temporary deaths, their dreams of better things or even worse things, it makes no difference. Oh, and the moon, but she doesn’t belong to this street since everyone on this side of the earth can see her just like I can.

“Want some advice, my love?” says my bright friend. “Stop feeling so bad for yourself. And don’t even think about resenting me for saying that. What I mean is, you are here, on this street, in this city, in this state, in this country, on this planet, in this solar system, in this universe. You think I’m so big just because I’m some rock orbiting your home? You think I have any say in the things that happen just because I play with the waves, tugging them for fun when I have nothing better to do? What makes you less valuable than me? Than anything else, really?”

“Insignificance can have a mathematical value,” I say, just to be arrogant, just to not have to accept my multitudes.

“Okay, writer, let’s pretend you want to do some math right now, then. And the math says, wait, let me calculate, oh yeah, you had a one in one billion chance of being born. And you were. The night you were born I was full, I remember because the sun had been hugging me so tightly that moment, that soft day in the middle of the year, and all the crickets were singing to me too. The best part of saying all this to you is that I don’t have to because you already know. You’re fully aware of how important you are; you’re so afraid of the light shining on you that you prefer the moon. Wake up, let yourself soak in your significance, your incalculable being.”

“If pretty words could save me I would’ve been saved a long time ago,” I say quickly, prepared with my cynicism.

“I can’t believe we used to hang out so often, you’re so annoying.” She leaves me with that and deeper into the city I go.

When the busyness of the streets and sidewalks finally picks up and the night feels more alive, I call the number on the receipt paper.

“Who is this?” says the voice on the other side of the call, immediately after picking up. I know that if I hang up now everything would be fine and I could just turn around, go home, force myself to fall asleep or at least stare at my ceiling until the biology of my entire organism shuts down forcibly.

“It’s me, Kurt, I- I was wondering if I could come over?” I can hear talking and music slipping between the cracks of the phone line.

“Of course you can come over,” Kurt says, his voice fading from authoritative to soft instantly. “The doors unlocked, let yourself in.”

Three blocks later I’m hesitating in front of a copper green door. I hold my hand on the knob until the decision is no longer mine and the door thrusts inward, pulled out of my grip. Standing in the doorway is not Kurt, but instead someone who I think I know as Annabelle but I couldn’t be certain enough to call her that. I’ve seen her in hazy visions of past nights with Kurt.

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” maybe-Annabelle says, smiling. “I was kind of hoping I wouldn’t see you here again, if that’s okay to say.” My cheeks flood with a burning sensation, probably embarrassment, but like I said I don’t know how I feel. I log embarrassment as a feeling triggered by a beautiful girl acknowledging my fondness of drugs.

“I don’t do anything hard,” I say a little too fast. “Don’t listen to Kurt if he pretends I’m into his bullshit, I usually just come here to trip on acid and watch Animal Planet on his flatscreen since I don’t have a TV at home.”

“Annabelle would you please bring the love of my life inside?” Kurt shouts from an unknown area of his apartment. She grabs my shirt and uses her grip to pull me inside, with almost enough force to collide me into her but she stops the collision with careful precision.

“Don’t tell me you like this guy,” she whispers in my ear.

If I were the kind of person who had words on hand I’d know what to say, and I’d be able to flirt with her smoothly, say something like, I like you a lot more, or, not if I knew you liked me. These thoughts usually come in retrospective regrets sessions when I’m alone in my bed the day after, like a hangover of social interaction. Annabelle doesn’t need a response though, she closes the door behind my stiff body and walks towards the kitchen without looking back.

Kurt’s apartment could pass for the apartment of a corporate employee. All of his material possessions are the most costly of their kind and none of the walls left empty because of his eye for art. In his room above his bed hangs a painting I did the first time I tripped in his apartment, so I stay out of his room as to not see myself. Of course, he always tries to get me in there but he’s never thinking of the painting as much as I do. His operation is pretty flawless from what he told me one night when he was drunker than I had ever seen him before. He explained that he had a laundry shoot in his apartment and that if cops ever came he would take all the materials and send them down it, where the force of the supplies hitting the bottom of the dumpster would rattle the other trash bags over top. Then, were this to ever happen, he had people who were always in close proximity, and when they received the right message from him they would crawl under the dumpster and open the latch door to get the supplies. Then they’d be off in a van to somewhere that, even drunk, he wouldn’t tell me about.

Kurt is in love with me. I have tried to figure out why but it doesn’t seem to ever resemble reality. It’s not that I’m not attractive. In the right scene, usually when I’m on drugs, I’m a pretty good conversationalist. It’s more that there were plenty of girls like Annabelle, who had long, beautiful hair and knew how to do their make-up and wore expensive clothes and were always smooth from skin care and shaving and other things I didn’t know anything about. Before I met Kurt I had cut my own long hair off and now it curled around my ears and cheeks messily, no part the same length as any other part. I always come over in sweatpants and a hoodie, not to hide anything but just for the comfort of it. I never try to look any certain type of way, save an impulsive decision to get a nose ring once when I was high. Logistically, Kurt shouldn’t be so into me.

When I walked into the kitchen, with the dinner table covered in bagged pills and powders, Kurt came in for a hug immediately. He smelled like cologne and weed, which I kind of liked. I hugged back with such depth that my face pressed against his chest. I thought of my therapist and acknowledging feelings when they shifted into something else. I was feeling safe.

“What’re you here for, baby?” Kurt says. “You know you can have anything on me. What’re you trying to feel tonight?” Before I could answer, he kept talking. “I got some new stuff, some real nice opioid type stuff, love.”

“Kurt, you know I don’t do that kind of stuff,” I say, feeling Annabelle’s eyes on me. I wasn’t lying, just to be clear; Kurt often offered drugs he knew I’d say no to as if one day he’d get me on something. “Just a tab, please, and- and let me pay, okay?”

He took the ten dollar bill from my hand and gave me a bag of ten or so tabs. There is no arguing with Kurt’s generosity, especially if he is irrationally in love with you.

“I’m going to go watch, uh, Animal Planet.” I don’t wait for anyone to say anything, just let myself into Kurt’s bedroom where his flatscreen is. I avoid making eye contact with my art hanging above the bed. The sound booms as a show about animals in habitats all over the world begins, shots of the Earth reminding me of my infinite smallness. I press a tab against my tongue.

Animals are very interesting and very different from humans. Sometimes I think what makes us different is actually what makes us completely the same.

A snail can sleep for three years straight. I must’ve just woken up from my three years.

Frogs can be hypnotized by being placed on their backs and having their stomachs stroked. Annabelle walks into the room, closes the door behind her, crawls into bed like she knows more than I’ve said, and puts her hand under my shirt. Nothing beyond the walls exists.

Pigeons can be taught to tell the difference between paintings of artists like Picasso and Monet. Annabelle’s mouth is right beside my ear while she hypnotizes me, and she says, “So I heard this painting is yours,” and stares at the wall above our head.

Dragonflies form the shape of a heart when they have sex. Annabelle and I’s bodies form some kind of shape but less of a heart and more like the splotch the therapist tells you to interpret. I think of the way I’m feeling and decide on a simple and easy word: good.

I run out of animal facts when Annabelle’s face is deep between my thighs and my eyes are closed but I can see everything anyways. Mostly what I see is the moon; she’s trying to tell me something but I can’t hear, so I focus really hard even though everything feels too good to think. Reflecting on my eyelids like a projector is the moon, she’s glowing but disoriented, glitching every now and then, stumbling over radio-like silence, the hum of her, what did she call it? Incalculable being. She says it again, and again, ‘till I can hear it.

“Why don’t you ever listen to me?” she says first, needing to get her scolding in, and then more importantly, “Get out of there now.” Of course I listen to her.

Just after I tune out of my connection with the less than vivid moon vision, my body shakes against Annabelle’s face and she comes up to kiss me with the taste of me in her mouth, her tongue inside my mouth reconnecting me with myself. It distracts me for only so long.

“We have to get out of here,” I say, pushing her off me. The thick, blue electric current I see running through everything every time I trip has wrapped itself around her gorgeous body and is radiating from her mouth, reaching towards me. “I have to go. You can come if you want but I have to go.” I pull my sweatpants back on and rush to the fire escape, already one leg out of the window when we hear a bang on the front door. An unusually loud bang. Annabelle’s eyes go wide, either at the bang itself or at my knowing that it would happen before it did. Either way, she doesn’t move an inch from the bed. For the first time since Kurt hung it up, I see my painting on the wall. From this unexpected angle I’m sitting at, I can take all of it in.

The painting is large, a canvas that Kurt had bought for me, a way of getting me to come to his place despite it never resulting the way he wanted. The painting is a city skyline, more or less, with no detail and only shapes but you really just know, because you are human, that it is a city skyline. The only distinguishable thing about it is the bright and clear and heavily detailed moon whose white light glides across the buildings and streets with reverent ease, like she was born to. The painting is beautiful and I wish, even as a writer, I had more words to explain it.

We can hear the front door, heavy as it is, burst open, and Kurt shouts something. I pull myself back into the apartment, grab the painting, and am out of the window again without a second thought to Annabelle, Kurt, drugs, police, or anything else. I climb down the fire escape until I’m back on my walk with just myself and the moon.

“Hey, I like that painting,” says the moon when my feet hit the concrete below. The drugs hit the bottom of the dumpster with an alarming boom, and from one end of the alleyway fireworks of red and blue explode and voices mention the sound of a crash, so I run towards the opposite end. I run until my heart screams and my lungs wail and the moon rubs my back.

“How do you feel, my love?” she says.

I tell her that I hate painting even though I love it, just like I hate writing even though I love it. And I hate drugs even though I love them, and I hate sex even though I love it. And I list everything that makes me a human because, you know, there are two sides to every coin or whatever, and more importantly than anything else, I love life even though I hate it.

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Mars in Taurus for You… Reading for the Signs

What will this upcoming MARS in TAURUS mean for you? This transition takes place from January 6th to March 3rd. MARS is the planet of aggression and enthusiasm. TAURUS is the sign of patience and beauty. In general, this transit represents a time of calmness and focusing on one’s personal aesthetics. For your birth chart specifically, though? We’ll see.

This reading was done using Moonology Oracle.

Readings apply to Sun, Moon, Rising, Mercury, Mars, and Venus.

ARIES ♈︎

Supermoon 🌕︎

With Mars leaving your sign, you’re going to feel misunderstood. Suddenly, things that flowed naturally before will now feel like attacks. This displacement of astrological attention from you to Taurus will cause you to crave attention and validation. This is perfectly fine, don’t be hard on yourself for this incredibly natural response. Focus more on the source that your much needed attention comes from. Keep your goals on professional and personal success than anything external, such as romance or friendship. Despite this transition in major planets, your focus on yourself must remain. I know you love switching to new perspectives whenever given the chance, but this will not benefit you during this time.

TAURUS ♉︎

Void-of-Course Moon 🌕︎

Keep in mind that life is about to begin moving the way you move naturally. This is important to remember because people tend to get prideful and overzealous during times of Mars being familiar. Instead, embrace the feeling of fitting into your environment. Use this time to complete any tasks that you have been procrastinating on, especially personal goals. If you wanted to finish that quilt or memorize that recipe by now, there is no longer an excuse. Taurus placements, unconvinced by most ideas, tend to get stuck in their belief systems. Make sure that you take time to think about any new concepts or theories coming your way.

GEMINI ♊︎

First Quarter Moon 🌓︎

For some Geminis this will be a Mars return, for others it will not be. Regardless, it will be a challenging time. This transition for Taurus placements will inspire decisions that may be life-changing. In the past few years, you have made professional and personal commitments. At this time those commitments are being challenged. Things you once believed were important commitments now drain you of your energy. Allow yourself to flow with the changes. Accept when things that you needed once are no longer needed now. In any given moment, you can be anyone you want to be.

CANCER ♋︎

New Moon in Libra 🌑︎ ♎︎

During this time, you will fall in love with someone or something. This could be you, another person, a community, or a new hobby. This time will bring you a sense of belonging that has been missing from your life for a while now. Simply put, it is time for you to embrace the love and validation that seems to always find its way in your direction. Do not be afraid of compliments, confessions, or blossoming relationships. You are worthy and deserving of everything coming your way. It is time for you to be proud of yourself. You’ve been putting in the work with boundaries and love and you deserve to also reap the benefits of that.

LEO ♌︎

New Moon in Aries 🌑︎ ♈︎

Although Taurus is typically a sign that moves slowly, you will continue to work at a pace that is constantly accelerating. In both your professional and personal life, you will continue to avoid any times of relaxation, keeping your attention on creating and building. This is behavior that this Mars transition will encourage. At some point during this astrological event, you will be given a choice about how you might take action professionally. Two different directions will merge and it will be up to you to understood yourself well enough to make an educated decision. Do not worry, you will already know what to do. It depends on how willing you are to follow your own intuition.

VIRGO ♍︎

Blue Moon 🌕︎

Take your the goals you have, then assume that you will manifest far more than that. You’re not letting yourself have far out goals because it’s closer than it’s ever been before. It’s understandable, really, you’re trying to keep yourself on a humble level. What you’re forgetting is that you have truly put in the work, though, so success is inevitable and constantly headed towards you. It is in this time period of 2021 that you will first face the impossible reality of success. When this event happens, granting you your manifested abundance, take a deep breath before accepting it. I know you find most good things hard to believe, so ensure that you are in the right state of mind for acceptance by keeping yourself healthy.

LIBRA ♎︎

Gibbous Moon 🌔︎

Those things you manifested throughout the course of 2020 will begin appearing in your physical life during Mars in Taurus. Remember that this is only thing beginning. That means that bigger things are on the way, so keep your expectations realistic. Despite being the sign of balance, you can have a tendency to romanticize life and therefore anticipate the best. Although, it is your very romantic nature that has given you the abundance you have coming, so I dare not stop a Libra from creating their own reality. Your manifestation powers are unstoppable, as always, so while you receive do not forget to continue to manifest.

SCORPIO ♏︎

Waxing Moon 🌘︎

With Mars in your sister sign, it is time for you to take a deep breath and release what you have been holding in. Although you have specifically been working towards living an honest life, the things hidden within you are not from you lying. There are things you simply did not express. It is okay to admit what you have held back. Tell them what you’ve been wanting to say, even if you’re not sure about their response. During this time, get everything out on table. This will ensure your ability to choose any options you might desire in life when the future arrives.

SAGITTARIUS ♐︎

New Moon in Gemini 🌑︎ ♊︎

If it’s not working out the way you’ve anticipated, try communicating clearer. This will be a time period of organization for you. As you realize that people are not exactly where you want them, you will find that the reasoning for this is your style of communication. Although each person differs in the way that they communicate, this is no excuse to simply not communicate. It’s even harder when some people in your life are way too easy to talk to and others are impossible to talk to. It’s okay to solve the puzzle, to figure out what the differences and similarities might be. What does someone have to do to get you to share yourself with them? It’s okay if you’re many different people at one time, just share whoever you are in the moment.

CAPRICORN ♑︎

North Node ☊

You are a big fan of the concept of comfort. Outside of your comfort zone exists one of your least favorite things: unpredictability. You like to be among a known crowd, so you might say the perfect jokes. You like to invest in predictable stocks, because you already know the market. You like to be vulnerable with the same friends, because to begin opening yourself up again would be too exhausting. As long as this transition occurs, you will be unable to keep up with your routine. Although you share earthy qualities with Taurus, you do not share their capacity for patience. Outside of your comfort zone, you might find a method of being patient with your own self. How unstoppable would a Capricorn with patience for themselves be?

AQUARIUS ♒︎

New Moon in Cancer 🌑︎ ♋︎

Remember the montage in the movie before the chaos? One of the first scenes, where we learn what life was like before the inciting incident happens. This is what Mars in Taurus will be like for you. This will be the calm before the storm, a time of trusting in the universe and letting go of anxiety. It can be especially difficult to disconnect from anxiety when we know chaos is on the horizon, but this is one of those experiences where it is a necessity. Truly appreciate the sense of family and peace that surrounds you for the upcoming month and a half. What follows after will be fun chaos, sure, but someday you will miss the stillness of now, the certainty of it all. Read a book, since you have the time and all.

PISCES ♓︎

Waxing Moon 🌒︎

You feel like you’re towards the end of something right now but the reality is that you’re in front of the beginning of something. When Mars makes this transition, you will find yourself on a fast lane towards your future. Pisces are especially afraid of life adventures that are fast-paced, preferring the slowness of Taurus instead, which is exactly why you will love this time. Every single day, find an expression of self-love to share with yourself. This is a time of building so that when the real chaos comes, you are ready for action.

BOOK FOR A PERSONAL READING

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