She Pulls the Tower
By Mikayla Galgerud
We sit criss-crossed on our bed. The dichotomy between us is laughable: she is showered, fresh-bodied and minded for this conversation; I am rotting in dirty pajamas with greasy hair that is bound to stain the plush dinosaur I sink my head into. In a choppy swipe—it’s been a while since she’s done this—she spreads the cards in front of her.
There is something mystical about lesbian relationships, something of the divine. When we had gotten together five years earlier, I love you felt heavy, like sinking but not drowning, like a spell on the tongue, like a curse. So when she joked that she cast a love spell on me, I had to believe her. When she said her tarot told her to be confident in us, we signed a lease.
We ask the deck question after question, unsatisfied with its vague answers. We need something more concrete. Should we break up? The deck spits out a card and flips it over: The Tower. It is on fire, the tip of the roof breaking through blackened storm clouds. Below it are jagged rocks, with two figures—lovers, maybe—impaled clean on either side. No blood, but their fate seems sealed. We do not like this card; she flips over a new card and we stare The Devil right in the face. We decide we no longer like this game.
She scoops up all the cards. She shuffles us back into the deck. We will try again.
Mikayla Galgerud (they/she) is an essayist and poet finishing their M.A. in English at Ball State University. While they write across genres, they tend to focus on their identity as a queer Midwesterner and their relationship with mental illness.