Which Starseed Are You?

by Sarp Sozdinler

Andrew Neel

1. Pleiadian

First: remove all the mirrors in your home. Hide them in the crawl space, bury them in your landlord’s garden, shove them in the backseat of a stranger’s car. They will lie to you about your face. Next: buy an expensive blender. Fill it only with light: sunlight, LED light, the pale glow of your ex’s phone. Drink the light. Digest the stars. Defecate the dust. Communicate exclusively through half-finished doodles made on napkins and car wash receipts. Do not bother to explain yourself. Heal others by brushing your fingers against their soft tissue. Send them memes you are not really sure you understand. Never admit you are lonely. That some nights you wake up and find yourself curled fetal on the shower floor. That your teeth buzz so hard they crack in the middle of the night. The Pleiadian rule: if anyone accuses you of being a liar, astral-kick the shit out of them, then deny anything happened.

2. Sirian

Go to water. Be the water. Fill the tub. Slip inside fully clothed. Whisper your secrets into the ripples until the grout grows damp with your sick. Whisper louder. Imagine Atlantis rising beneath you, a CVS receipt the length of the highway. Sit on the diving board of a public pool, scare the kids with chlorine prophecies. Throw food until the lifeguards or the poliçe drag you away. Scream out: I was born remembering my birth. Order three different cocktails at a local bar, only to spill them all on the floor. Every Sirian owns at least one sword, or is saving up for one. Carve your name into wet sand. Let the tide take it. Imagine the tide is your parent, your friend. When asked about your hobbies, list only: shipwrecks, dogging, dog-sitting. Cry only in nautical terms: my ballast is compromised, the bilge is flooded, man overboard.

3. Grey (Zeta Reticuli)

Begin with stillness. Do not fidget. Do not laugh. Pretend your body is drywall. Pretend drywall is better than a body. Practice blinking once every thirty seconds. Clock yourself. Time your breaths. Precise your deaths. Delete all contacts from your phone, replace them with new ones you’ll invent. Call everyone in the middle of the night. Say nothing, listen to them breathe. List your emotions like you are listing groceries. Place a hand on someone’s shoulder and squeeze it until it hurts. Repeat until they weep. Collect napkins from diners. Spoons, too. Stainless steel, bent, greasy, doesn’t matter. Line them under your bed like troops. Greet your new family with wrist cuts. When someone makes a joke, stare at them for a full minute. Carry a notebook but never write anything. When asked what you want, say nothing. When asked nothing of what, stare harder. When you finally run out of answers, abduct them into your ship.

4. Lightworker

Buy three Himalayan salt lamps. Then buy three more. Arrange them in a perfect circle and sit in the middle. Leave them on even during the day. Call the electric bill your bible. Text your ex: I forgive you, only to block them after. Unblock them at midnight, text never mind, then block again. Offer strangers half-empty bottles of water. Spit in them. Stick motivational Post-It notes to every windshield on your street. Collapse from exhaustion by noon, resurrect by dinnertime. Call yourself a vessel. Call everyone else sheep. Start three podcasts about trauma and abandon all of them by episode four. Your aura is allegedly rainbow, but in photographs it looks like an unpaid Venmo. Say it again, louder, until your voice breaks. Sleep next to your salt lamps. Dream you are one.

---

Sarp Sozdinler is a writer based between Philadelphia and Amsterdam. His work has found places in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Shenandoah, Wigleaf, Flash Frog, Pithead Chapel, Fractured Lit, Maudlin House, and elsewhere. His stories have been selected or nominated for anthologies including the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfiction. He edits the literary journal The Bulb Region. He can be found online @sarpsozdinler or at www.sarpsozdinler.com