Aries Season

A day before my 34th birthday, I open Outlook to an email that says Effective immediately, all faculty will sustain a 2% pay cut. You are more than welcome to resign. I curse the first woman president of the university. Bitch. I'm a fake feminist. The same day, a man shoots himself in the hall of the medical school where my friend goes. I text him Omg. How horrible. He says Yes. Some people are so lonely. The violence of the lonely seeps into every crack of the city. The first man I slept with after meeting my fiancé tells me of course he's an atheist, like that should be obvious among the educated. But all the women I love believe in God. I kneel before my altar, scattered with magnolia seeds like Red Hots. I google a picture of the new president so when I visualize her being publicly cancelled, her papier-maché face on Krewe du Vieux parade floats, God knows just who I mean. Wisely, God rarely grants my wishes. I immerse banana peels in water for my newly planted fig tree, which is already growing fruit. Soaking the soil with potassium water, I imagine every power structure is a fig on a branch, rotting vividly, then falling.