In response to T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
Let me go then, only I. In a moment, there is time for decisions and revisions, which a minute will reverse. I’ll confess: I don’t say I love you enough. There will be time, there will be time.
April, 2025
I’m sorry for that. Sometimes it hits me when my hands graze the pebbled rocks that scatter the hallways, skipping each wooden slab, while peering into the carrels. Maybe this’ll be the last time I experience this feeling, one I can’t properly describe. I know I feel it often, without sensing that I do.
Can I tell you how much I love you, and will you listen? Say, for example, when I’m grabbing Creamy Crisp Barebells from Sci, arms bangle-d with fizz-free Celsiuses of all different sizes, Carol remembers my name again, and I know she sees a million faces, but she makes mine feel significant. Do you know that I wish I could stay here? To make a decision, without revision?
Will you remember my feet grazing the grass, heavy, permanent, cowboy-booted in the Crum? “There goes that girl trudging through the mud again.” I never wear the right shoes, and my legs are always bare, but I dance in the woods, screaming songs until my voice sharpens and cracks like stripped bark. I wish I’d sing “I love you” softly instead. So how should I presume?
February, 2025
I have known you already, in the evenings, mornings, and afternoons. I see you everywhere: sometimes at night, with Kohlberg mice scurrying around on the floor, tasting any crumb they can find. I see you in Parrish basement’s Twin Peaks stalls, crimson red walls, with black and white tiles. I meet you in the hidden Roberts bathroom — the one I discovered after I’d moved out, after all of the times I’d swipe mascara on in the CO-OP mirror because my quint one was in use.
I think I knew it sitting on the railing, outside of Dana Hall. Back pressed against the bark, staring up the branches, Mom on the phone. Or when I visited your home, near the woods, and heard a symphony of strings. The presenter nearly cried over the display, and so did I. Maybe I felt it in Old Tarble, with my tapestry pinned to the wall. Never a patient etherized upon a table, but close, yet not at all.
October, 2025
I feel it when I sit, looking into your eyes, at Narples, pitter-patter of feet anxiously anticipating plates with heaps of food taller than my dog. I haven’t measured my portions with coffee spoons, so I grab three plates for me and you. When LPAC fills with shouts of dance-filled joy over rhythms n’ motions — I have neither — I watch, transfixed by the sways and screams shooting at the stage. I see waves of headlights perforate the trees in gashes, behind the president’s house, a cherry blossom border of festivals more beautiful than you’d know. And how should I presume?
April, 2024
Tonight, I miss you, even if you’re here. I miss walking at midnight, headphones in hand. I miss when rain floods Faulkner Tennis Courts, and the steamy and sweaty bodies sardine themselves into the Matchbox instead. I miss Pittenger’s caved-in ceilings; the smell of rotting salmon from the trash next door. I miss Parrish’s Post Office before OneCard swipes, when people would have to talk to me, and I’d chat, arms spread across the counter, hands finding rest under my chin. I miss Kitao after putting up a show, admiring the blank walls now covered, placed with memories that are and aren’t mine.
April, 2025
I miss what I’m not yet allowed to miss, too. McCabe’s basement, my dearest, and that ridiculous leather chair. Tangled MacBook wires, office hours, and fenced-in lawns. Poor internet connection and hushes from the other carrels. Singer late on Saturday nights, slurred speech running through the corridors. I remember when I had more time, too, but the eternal Footman holds my coat and snickers. I’m not afraid anymore.
I hate you sometimes. Your motivations can be completely unclear, hypocritical, and insincere. You’re hard and closed off and wintry, in a way that feels erratic. One moment you’re warm and the next ice cold. I love you, but you can be hard to love when it’s 6 a.m. after an all-nighter, and you’re passed out on the classroom floor. Should I then presume?
And how should I end? You’re exhausting, but love is effort. I toil at it every night when I clock out, staring at my jagged ceiling tiles. Mine for four years, only a fraction, forever a memory. But unlike J. Alfred Prufrock, you’re worthwhile, for the while.
I love you, Swarthmore, for all that you are and everything that I hope you’ll become. That’s it, all in all.
October, 2025
