“My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me. Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak. What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? I never know what you are thinking. Think.”
I think we are in rats’ alley, where the dead men lost their bones.
“What is that noise? The wind under the door. What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”
Nothing again nothing.
“Do you know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember nothing?”
I remember, those are pearls that were his eyes.
“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?””
—
T.S. Eliot (via homeofthevain)
A favorite of mine. Listen to (or download) Eliot reading the whole thing on my drop. it’s only half an hour. for some strange reason, I at one point felt compelled (challenged?) to memorize this poem. It’s still in my brain and sometimes I go over it when I have trouble falling asleep (not to imply it’s soporific).