do you want to go out tonight
where
idk
like a one-night cheap hotel
or maybe one of those sawdust restaurants
Sawdust restaurants?
Like with the peanut shells on the floor?
with oyster shells
Oyster shells on the floor?
let’s have a tedious argument in the streets
have you been drinking?
the sky is so beautiful tonight
like a patient etherized on a table
I’m coming over
I’m worried about you
there’s yellow smoke on the window-panes
What kind of smoke? Did you leave the stove on?
it’s curling all around the house
You need to get out of the house
oh it’s already sliding along the street
Get out of the house
now
I’m coming over
there will be time
there will be time for you and me
they say it I know they say it
they all say it
I honestly think you’re being paranoid
“But his arms and legs are thin!”
Nobody says that about you
Or how thin my hair is getting
Your hair looks fine
You’re all saying it
you think I can’t understand you because you’re talking about Michelangelo
But I know what you’re saying about me
I like the way your arms and legs look
I like your hair the way it is
You’d like me pinned and wriggling on the wall
I never said that
I wish I were claws
I wish I were just a bunch of claws
like a crab?
no
just claws
ripping shit up with my claws
living underwater
can we go back to that oyster restaurant
that depends
are you going to pretend to be a pair of claws and scuttle around in the lobster tank?
are you going to drive me there or what
S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse
you know I don’t speak Italian
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
No idea what you’re saying
so
let me know if you want to talk later in English
sorry new phone who is this
I told you they hated me
I told you I could hear their voices dying with a dying fall
I don’t think they hate you
I just think they were surprised to see you dressed like that
They’ve always hated me
I just don’t think they were expecting you to come in shouting
“I am Lazarus, come from the dead, come back to tell you all”
well I’m sorry
I’m sorry I’m not Prince Hamlet or whatever
Sorry to be an easy tool
No one thinks you’re a tool
It’s just a weird thing to say at a dinner party
what are you doing
like right now
working
good good
that’s good
do you think I should eat a peach
what
right now?
yeah
do you want to eat a peach?
idk
yeah
then you should eat a peach
yeah
could you give me a ride?
right now?
yeah
i’m at work
i know
where do you need a ride to?
the store
what store
i need a peach
can it wait?
not really
there’s like
a bunch of mermaids here
and they definitely hate me
I don’t know where that is
can we go back to that oyster restaurant
maybe they have peaches
I can’t leave work to go buy you a peach right now
that’s okay
that’s fine
the mermaids keep singing about drowning me
but I’ll probably be fine
okay
okay
tell me where you are and I’ll come get you
awesome
and then we can go get peaches?
yes
we can go get peaches
okay
I’ll be there in fifteen minutes
do you think I would look good with rolled trousers
like if I rolled up the cuffs
I think they would make my legs look less skinny
I don’t know
probably
I don’t know if I want a peach actually
oh my god
but you should still come get me
let’s go out somewhere
Tags: claws, j. alfred prufrock, poetry, t.s. eliot, texts from
Well. This is the greatest. And…my friend and I? Engaged in some dorky, Prufrock-quoting, back-and-forth commentary on FB last week, which we then followed up via text. And now this. You guys just get me.
“there’s like, a bunch of mermaids here, and they definitely hate me” !!!!!
I don’t know if I want a peach actually
oh my god
but you should still come get me
Hahaha I never thought of J.A.P. (YES I EDITED MYSELF TO CORRECT THIS) as an asshole boyfriend, but there it is.
This is every hope and dream I have ever had for the Internet, come true.
best comment ever!!
Oh J. Alfred. We ALL wish we were a bunch of claws, just ripping shit up, but we have responsibilities now. We can’t just be a bunch of claws whenever we want anymore.
Not even in the lobster tank?
Not on a WORK night!
*slides slowly out of desk chair, lies on floor, screams a tiny scream into the carpet*
This is brilliant. I once considered getting a line from this poem tattooed somewhere on my body.
I did. On my shoulder. Three years ago.
I’m considering that about The Waste Land, but can’t pick a line. It’d have to stand up out of context too.
How ’bout the whole thing?
I was going to have “I have measured out my life in coffee spoons” stenciled around my kitchen ceiling.
“do I dare disturb the universe?” right arm
87 weeks late to the conversation, but whatever… my husband proposed to be because i recited this poem to him in full lol…. so we’re getting matching tatts of “let us go then, you and i”
I’m sorry I’m not Prince Hamlet or whatever
I am lost. I am lost.
I love this so much. I wonder if I can make “Texts from…” a writing assignment for my students.
AMAZING idea, that and parody Facebook / Twitter accounts – I mean, it’s been done, but breaking this stuff down into modern language is a good way to show you understand the meaning of the original text, I feel like?
DOOO IITTT that is such a great idea, yes yes yes
I had to create an online class for a program I’m in (postsecondary teaching certificate) and my class was a literature-discussion elective where the students would read Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Snow Crash, and one of my assignments was to create a Twitter or Facebook or Tumblr or Livejournal or whatever as one of the characters from the books, and then everyone had to interact in character on each other’s social media. FIWI the teacher and my classmates all loved the idea.
I would have loved that when I was in school. You are a kickass teacher.
I’m gonna start texting Italian to random strangers now, YOUR FAULT MALLORY
UGH don’t trust the URL i changed the url but now it’s still stuck on wuthering heights
WUTHERING HEIGHTS IS TK
Something something metatextual something critical commentary something
FOUCAULT’D
mallory
it’s me cathy
i’ve come hoo-oo-oomme
let me into your ‘texts from’ serieees
Oh, this is excellent news indeed.
there’s like
a bunch of mermaids here
and they definitely hate me
This kind of sounds like exactly how my anxiety manifests itself.
SOMEONE needs to buy a carbon monoxide detector.
This is my favorite Texts from EVER. (But props to Jane Eyre for the term “hedge witch” and to Nancy Drew for dark hilarity.)
I remember when we read this poem in class my professor had a cartoon with Prufrock on the beach staring at a peach, and two mermaids in the water talking to each other:
“I’m not talking to that guy.”
“Me either!”
That is an AWESOME cartoon!
Aaah. Perfect!
It reminds me of when a couple of years ago I wrote a thing that was the mermaid’s rebuttal to the poem. “It’s not like he even asked. Yeah, we probably would have sung for him, if he wasn’t being such a little bitch, all up on the beach with his dumb peach. Not like he even asked us if we wanted any, I mean, like mermaids get a chance at produce that often.”
hahahaha girl that is AMAZING love it your claws are mad nice
I am so happy that somebody appreciates J. Alfred Prufrock as much as I do.
I think you’re a tool, J. Alfred.
This is amazing. The claws, ripping shit up! He’s like J. Alfred Brofrock.
The title of the Allman Brothers Band album Eat a Peach was not taken from that poem. A lot of people thought they chose that title because the motorcycle accident that killed Duane Allman involved a truck carrying peaches, but that’s not true, the truck was carrying wood or some shit. It is however from a Duane Allman quote: “There ain’t no revolution, it’s evolution, but every time I’m in Georgia I eat a peach for peace.”
This tidbit of Rock-n-Roll history is making me feel like a dorky 60 year-old dad, and I’m fine with that.
How would eating a peach be “for peace”? I don’t understand that quote at all. I do however eat Georgia peaches as often as possible because they are cheap here 😉
It makes zero sense. The dude was obviously drunk or high during that interview. Talk about apathetic and non-confrontational. I don’t believe in revolutions, just let things evolve naturally maaaaan. You know what I do for the cause? I ingest fruit in 90% humidity.
I think you mean 200% humidity 😉
Once, after a heavy summer rain, the sun came out and I swear I literally saw the street steaming into a big mist as the rain got boiled up and evaporated.
Maybe he’s implying oral sex? Because pretty girls from GA are called Georgia peaches? Make love not war? I dunno.
omg omg ts eliot.
I was seriously eating a peach and thinking about this poem JUST LAST NIGHT. Never get out of my head, Mallory, never.
A woman’s heart is like a deep ocean of secrets and at the murky bottom are a bunch of claws, just claws, ripping shit up with my claws.
This describes you really well actually.
I laughed so hard at “do you want to eat a peach?” “idk” that I alarmed my mother in the next room.
In case you only read the first 2 texts and came down here with questions, the italicized text is supposed to be Prufrock.
This is incredible. Oh, it’s so incredible.
I saw a cartoon once of an operating room with the anesthetized patient there on the operating table. And one surgeon is saying to the other one, “He looks just like an evening spread out against the sky.”
I saw this headline this morning and then there was work and lunch and work and driving around and dinner and more driving around and I just now got to read it and now I’m sad that I didn’t read it earlier and now I’ve missed, like at least 12 hours of happiness.
Oh Melis, never change <3
I would have loved that when I was in school. You are a kickass teacher.
Ok, I didn’t comment when this first went up because there were already a million (40) comments saying how great it was, but I keep reading this over and over and I love it so much and Melis you r so great I’ll buy u a peach any day. (I know u are totally not a needy annoying boyfriend like J., but still, u totally deserve a peach).
I’ve never been able to part my hair behind or wear white flannel trousers on the beach, of for sure, never seen any dang mermaids speaking each to each…
Oh J. Alfred Prufrock, you sorry motherfucker. I wasn’t able to articulate back in high school when I was forced to memorise 5 of your meandering poems that you are an entitled, sooky, terrible excuse for a man, BUT NOW I CAN. And these texts were perfect.
I read this far to often to be considered sane anymore.
“I’m sorry I’m not Prince Hamlet or whatever” is my new fave excuse for everything.