Prufrockianism and Other Poetic Clap-Trap

I haven't written in a long time because I haven't been able to bring myself to it.  I think about this space, and I think about the need to put words down to clear out my head, but for reasons I cannot look at clearly except out of the corners of my eyes, I always find other things to occupy my time.

And mostly, I've been happy.  There have been moments, but mostly, I've been trying to be happy and healthy and content.

It doesn't always work that way, though.

The nightmares are back lately.  Maybe it's the change of seasons or the phase of the moon.  I don't know.  I just wake up feeling old and tired, sick and sad.  It doesn't matter if I've slept for eight hours or three.

Tonight, I acutely feel my losses, all of them.  I feel the absence of people I lost or who threw me away.  I feel all the bumps and stones under my feet on this road less traveled, and I can't help but wonder what it would have been like to have taken the other damn one.  I feel the impact of every sling and arrow.

I create horrible, maudlin pastiches of literature, too, apparently....

Leaving all the greats alone, then, I find myself slipping a finger across the glossy screen of my cellphone, and images of Istanbul and Brazil flicker past.  I stop on a view of the Ayasofia at sunset, and I keep feeling like if I could just get there, just hear the call to prayer floating again, I could be okay somehow.  That distance and that certain slant of light could somehow combine into something strong enough to hold all the pieces together.

Would that really soothe this saudade, this painful/beautiful longing in my heart?  I don't know. Maybe it's just an illusion.  The wise say that travel gets us nothing but what we took there with in the first place anyway, don't they?  And maybe tomorrow will be an optimist's dream, filled with peace, progress, and plenty.  Maybe the sun really will come out.  Maybe all the mermaids really will sing.

I keep having those Prufrockian moments, though, and I have to say that I am pretty sure they won't be singing to me.

And now, having danced clumsily through Shakespeare, Brazilian Portuguese, Eliot, Frost, and popular musical theater, I think it's time to face whatever face whatever comes to see me in my dreams tonight has picked out of its prop closet.

Good night.