by Vixie the Fox
Today I roasted an eggplant.
It felt like a metaphor.
Everything does lately.
I cut it open and it bled seeds—
which, honestly, is just rude.
Carl says that’s “normal”, but Carl once dated a succulent that ghosted him during watering season,
so, what does he know.
The recipe called for olive oil.
I poured regret instead.
They look similar when backlit by afternoon disappointment.
Midway through, I stared into the oven
and saw myself.
Not my reflection, mind you—
but the essence of me:
overheated, underseasoned,
and slowly collapsing under the weight of unspoken expectations.
The eggplant burned.
Or perhaps it evolved.
Either way, I ate cereal for dinner
and cried into a dish towel
that smells like unresolved trauma and rosemary.
Writer’s block, you ask?
Darling, writer’s block is a cruel lover who knocks politely,
enters anyway,
and eats the last slice of my existential dignity.
But tomorrow, I will write again.
Perhaps about toast.
Or loss.
Or how those are occasionally the same thing.
