It’s not that I don’t care about you. It’s just that I’m really busy writing my thesis. Also, if you were to come to me crying, I would perceive your tears as a sign of physical weakness, as though you were a frail jungle fawn with a broken foot, and I’d involuntarily pounce on you and start chewing on your neck until you bled out and then drag your carcass to a cave, and I just can’t help that about myself at this time in my life.

I’m not lying when I say you mean a lot to me. Not only in a carnal way but in a territorial/possessive way. And because I care, I just feel like you deserve someone better. Me? I smoke way more than I should, and I have such a shitty relationship with my dad. I’m also obsessed with There Will be Blood because the cinematography makes me cry, and that part at the end when the kid gets trapped and killed in his at-home bowling alley makes me think, Yes, go off Daniel Day-Lewis — this is truly excellent trapping and killing.

I’m so messed up. I really just have to work on myself, and also on my thesis.

If you’ve been wondering why I barely talk about my life, and why I respond to huge emotionally charged texts with “oof,” and why I have a drawer of rat bones in my kitchen that I gnaw on to self-soothe, it’s because I have a lot going on right now with my thesis. Also because I was a feral human jaguar cub who ate his own jaguar brother during the dry season, and don’t feel any sort of remorse about that at all. That’s A LOT, right? No wonder I write so many songs.

There are just complicated things about me that I don’t expect you to be able to understand, like why I haven’t told my parents about us (they’re jaguars, and also wouldn’t be into the fact that you’re from the South), and also why I feel an intense spiritual connection to the collected works of David Foster Wallace, because yeah, the banality of existence, everyone’s a PHONY, but also because Infinite Jest is one of the only books thick enough for me to teethe on.

I’ll be vulnerable. I’ll un-dilate my pupils and retract my claws, figuratively — but also literally. I honestly just feel so broken, and I don’t want to burden you. I mean, for one, I’ve got my thesis. There’s also this issue I have where whenever we cuddle, I have to try really hard to suppress all the intrusive images of me clawing your face off and to not panic about commitment, and also to think to myself in all caps, NO MAULING. I’d actually love for you to fix me, assuming we keep things casual.

So, yeah, that’s me: the emotionally unavailable guy who wears a beanie to hide the scar my jaguar father left on my forehead when I tried to mate with my stepmom, and who learned how to skateboard six months ago because I’m just really into that aesthetic right now, and who listens to really good Midwest screamo/post-hardcore because the agonized wailing sounds make me think, Oh boy, I’m about to have a really delicious fresh and bloody meal.

If you’re still down to hang out, I may or may not be free this weekend. But I understand if this means you don’t want to see me anymore, and by “understand,” I mean I’m going to pad silently behind you everywhere you go from like a few blocks away, and spy on you at a party from across the room, but still barely text you back. You’ll think, Oh, THAT guy again, while I’ll be thinking, GRR-GRR, HISS-HISS. What did Foucault really mean about power coming from below?