by Vixie the Fox,part-time philosopher, full-time emotional hiccup
I’m tired.
Not the “I need a nap and a nice root vegetable stew” kind of tired—
but the kind that lives in your spleen.
(Do foxes have spleens? Nevermind.)
It’s just—
love keeps dodging me.
Like I’m handing out party invites
and everyone else RSVP’d to a better narrative.
I have lit candles.
I have read books.
I have emotionally gazed at puddles
like a protagonist in a moody woodland film.
And still—
nothing.
No brooding fox with a tragic backstory.
No poetic stranger who speaks in ellipses.
Just me.
And Carl.
(Who is emotionally unavailable in new and creative ways.)
I ask myself:
What’s wrong with me?
Am I too intense?
Too metaphorical?
Too likely to cry during soup commercials?
I try to be chill.
I try to care less.
I tried meditating but ended up yelling at a fern
because it reminded me of someone who ghosted me in 2019.
I told my tail to stop floofing every time someone nice looks my way.
It refused.
It has its own traumas.
And what’s worse—
I still care.
Even though I don’t want to.
Even though I pretend not to.
Even though I literally tried to remove my heart
and replace it with a decorative stone I found at a gift shop
that said “BREATHE.”
But the feelings?
They keep happening.
Like surprise invoices
from the universe
for services I never ordered.
I want to scream,
“Take it back! I don’t want it!”
Like a muffin filled with raisins instead of love.
Why do I want someone to see me
when I can barely look at myself
without squinting through the awkward narrative choices
and the unpaid emotional rent?
Maybe it’s me.
Maybe it’s the moon.
Maybe I’m too weird,
too wild,
too wrapped in sap-scented longing and bark-typewriter dreams.
But still, I hope.
Like a tragic idiot.
With good fur.
And an alphabet soup of emotions
I keep trying to spell “worthy” with.
Please, feelings—
go away.
You’re loud.
You’re late.
And you’re terrible at dishes.
