Amanda Rachelle Warren
From Letters
Dear Astrologer Tormented by Risings,
I would not balk had you said my future was the wall of storm before the eye. But there were other things. Bright hisses of counter-pressures. Dark rivers trapped beneath stratum, pushing towards light. Rogue waves and waterspouts. Typhoons. Richter Scales.
My house wants nothing more than to resemble a rose, but instead is filled with crumpled paper and compasses pivoting on their dull needles. All the elements intact. There, Air neglects the washing for tele-novellas. Water’s head rests on a map, mouth slack against a bleeding line of scrawl that spells out no one’s destiny. Fire loudly blames the closet door for all of her essential failings. And Earth, bored with ineffectively orchestrating my comings and goings, analyzes the crud beneath his nails, and considers, quite seriously, a cheese sandwich.
There is no straight correlation, one goes about slamming all the cabinet doors only to find them open. I dreamt of unwinding a spool of string throughout my day, tracing the pattern that was to find the pattern that is, but it pooled at my feet while I read; then tossed itself against the windowpane suicidally before spelling out forgive me in cursive loop de loops.
My future, it seems, is always one thing after another.
Yours truly,
Amanda