The Dear John Letter of Alfred J. Prufrock

Dear Mr. Prufrock,

I’m adhering to your rule about not addressing you familiarly in company (when are we ever alone?), but I cannot go on like this, with a hundred revisions before toast and tea. It is not your bald spot that chafes me so much as your prefacing every argument with quotes from Dante, in Italian, ensuring that I do not know what you mean at all.

If that were not enough to force this relationship to its crisis, you only want to go out at dusk, in the gloaming as it were, fog rising from the river and curling into my clothes, you about as animated as an etherized patient, a veritable Lazarus limping back to the tomb after a bit of pontificating.

Further, your obsession with cats combined with your wasteland worldview is frankly as unsettling as your desire for siren songs to be sung to you while you recline safely on a beach in flannel trousers, contemplating whether or not you have the courage to consume fruit.

I’m also offended by your mockery of my art history luncheons—mayhaps you could leave the apartment during daylight for once, trudge down an oyster shell path to the beach and await these mythic creatures with pearls as their eyes, perhaps with your oh-so-practical cat or an old possum.

I will continue to live my life while you sink further into yourself until you disappear completely. Truly, there are times I regret sharing sherbet on summer palaces. I believe this was all folly.

Cordially,

Mrs. Prufrock

P.S. please complete the attached beneficiary paperwork before you leave for the beach, and spare me your complaints about overwhelming questions—even Madame Sosostris grows tired of that.