saturn return

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i thought i knew what i needed to figure it all out

i thought i had it all figured out

i thought once i had it all i'd be happy

i thought i'd be happy once i figured it out

i thought i'd be

i thought i

i thought i'd be happy

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this is how i'd always thought of life

something unmanageable

meant to be won

something to be taken from before it takes from you

melancholy my only inheritance

a moment of joy meant

waiting for the other shoe to drop

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the cherry blossoms are in bloom again on dekalb avenue

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i am thinking of you

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for weeks

i walked through brooklyn with my hand over my heart

waiting for you to tell me you no longer love me

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but that's not what happened

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at the start of the year

rachel read my cards

i don't remember what the spread was called—

something like the wheel of the year?

something like that

each part of the year was represented by a quadrant

i pulled the hanged man

the star

the lovers

but the other cards said that my life would change

and that i would have to change with it


i didn't want to believe that

so i made up something else

some other interpretation

that didn't end the way it ended

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i'm not good with change

i don't like surprises

everything good in my life i've wanted to pin fast like a butterfly

a beautiful day becomes a memory even as i experience it,

the colors and the sounds like a sheet of paper floating in developer

and i

lower it into the water



ascribe a meaning to it

before it knows what it means

i'm like the man on the speedboat in the wendell berry poem—

my eye the camera, already choosing my own recollection

the words i'll use to tell the story i'll tell

this used to be a kind of power

making the narrative



i was so used to telling the story

to writing the truth i felt i deserved

when nothing else seemed to write it



but i

ignored the river

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there's a part in a mary gaitskill novel

veronica

where the narrator comes home

sad, after a party i think—

i'll just quote it—

let me find it—

“It was 4:00 in the morning,

but when she saw how unhappy I was,

she took out her tarot cards and told my fortune

until it came out the way I wanted it.”

it was kind of like that

no

that was exactly how it went

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if i have a flaw it is fatal

if my flaw is fatal it is this

i didn't allow you to love me

the way you were trying

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it was august and everyone seemed to be going through it

clare told me it was called a saturn return

she read some parts out loud from an email

an astrologer client of hers had sent her

in your saturn return

everything you know about yourself will be wiped away

—i am loosely paraphrasing—

everything will be worn away, everything stripped

everything ground down

everything bare

and when you find the bloody nub that's left

that's when you'll realize

that bloody nub

that's who you are


naturally this frightened me

i didn't want to accept it

i've accumulated so much in my life, so many selves

so many things tacked up in my room

an armature of a life

a life i had worked to build

it had been a long time since i had to consider who i am

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in the two weeks before we broke up for real

i found myself drawn to new age instagram accounts

there was some solace in it

like if i chose the right card

the thing we'd begun to do would be undone

and my life would remain the same


but that was the problem

it couldn't stay the same


every spring a plant needs to be repotted

cuttings need to take root in new soil

even the vines of wisteria that twine around the stone columns

at the entrance to the park

don't stop growing

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the day after we ended things

i woke up with a roaring in my head

the roaring was empty and loud

and i

was shipwrecked

this is it, is this it,

is this it, this is it,

this is it,

this is,

is it this,

it must be

this

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saturn has returned to where it was when i was born

and i have returned to spring

the magnolia buds are slate gray

and furring on the trees

i can tell you about it,

the greening, the small

slick leaves unfurling,

how in just a few weeks

the petals of the stone fruit trees

will scatter on the sidewalk like snow,

i can tell you about it,

the drawn-out days,

how long and orange a sunset becomes

when i watch it from my room

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i can tell you

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i've been learning so much

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i can tell you

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what i know is

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we are here

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text and code by larissa pham