I have come to realize that a great part of my youth has been spent, trying to pass these quiet midnight hours.
For so long, I have endeavored to create this beautiful, other, world – one of fancy, of melancholy, of love and regret – with the pen in my hand and the ink that flows from it. With it, I sought escape – a safe place – from the tiresome and mundane, from the relentless assault of reality, and the people and things in it.
Perhaps, I thought, somehow with this I could save myself.
So with pen in hand, and cigarette in another; with a heart full of sadness and a head full of words, I set out to create this distant, quiet place, and poured all that I had into it. But in the end, there is nothing here, really. Just empty words, a turn of phrase, a gesture, a smile, a tear, a gentle wisp of smoke in the still night air, and then, nothing. Such fleeting things. Such hollow things.
And all this time, she has stood by my side – a specter – whispering to me, this muse of mine.
Oh, how beautiful you were for a time! How I thought you would save me from myself! How I thought you would complete me, sustain me.
But I was wrong. The undeniable truth is this: you are nothing more than a deified reflection of the deep, hidden things of my soul that could find no other expression. You cannot fill the void I created you to fill. You are me, standing in the mirror through a veil of words.
This is not Prospero dismissing Ariel, this is me bidding you adieu, farewell.
Goodbye, Midnight.
It was truly beautiful for a while. But it is no longer the beauty that I seek.
I do not need you anymore.
