As my desk lamp brings life to the heavy words upon the delicate pages in this what would be dark room, I ponder my existence, naturally at 2:00 in the morning. This is nothing new, my uncommitted relationship with sleep; but nothing looked so enticing as the clean washed sheets hugging my bed beside me. Once again I ignored the siren’s call echoing “sleep, sleep,” and responded with the haunting words of T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I couldn’t help but imagine J. Alfred Prufrock having the same commitment issues with sleep as he roamed the cafes in the warm, starry sky, struggling to identify his meaning in a world drenched and obsessed with normality. Like a scary movie, this poem etched my mind with the thought of lifeless existence. What if I was wrong about my relationship with sleep? Like a zombie, erased of passion, I was in constant sleep, measuring my life with cans of red bull rather than coffee spoons. To think that red bulls promote alertness when all they do is zombify the masses. “Do I dare disturb the universe,” the page teases me, laughing at my bloodshot eyes and curious mind. Oh how tempting it is to melt into the crowd like water seeping through the cracks. Oh how easy it is to smile when the soul is breaking or imprison my body with the certain fads of tomorrow. Surely we will drown, according to Eliot, surely if not already sink into the sea’s dusty tomb. Fear latches onto us and sucks and slurps the childlike wonder we had for life. Remember the shear excitement of an ice cream cone or heck, why not wear purple tights with a red dress! How often is it we actually “dare to eat a peach”? Like a bolt of electricity racing through my veins, this poem electrified the mindlessness of life similar to a giant neon sign pointing to my crouched body hovering over my white, desk lamp. Sure I disturb my roommates by singing music from Spamalot; or sure I think it is straight up legit (yet disturbing) that I dare to steal a brick from campus. Oh I know, living on the edge. But gangster activity and my less than angelic more like William Hung voice aside, do I really dare to disturb the universe? Maybe the mermaids will sing to me; maybe instead of talking about Michelangelo we will get a little crazy and talk about Picasso. And maybe, just maybe, I won’t be measuring anything at all needless to mention red bull. Time isn’t waiting for me; yellow fog will continue to suffocate my lungs and zombies will possess my mind with empty chatter. But until then, I will turn my lamp off, and fall awake.
