Bravery

Dum inter homines, humanitatem columus. Dum tacent, clamant.

-Songs of Freedom and Captivity

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

-The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

I. Exposition

So,

Doctor,

How come I can

Absorb the Time Vortex,

Walk the earth,

Fly the TARDIS,

Change history,

Solve runes,

Hack databases,

Become the most important woman in all creation,

Stand up for everything and everyone everywhere

In some crystal-pillar-shadow of myself

(For an hour every Friday night,

And in restless dreams thereafter)

But when I see one

Walking through a crowd of vacationgoers

With careless confidence in costuming

A random face in your image

(Not even a face visible, that is -

Just a swirl of brown coat

And a shock of hair and pinstripes

Indistinguishable from a memory or dream made solid

The most vivid impression

Left under the sole of off-white tennis shoes)

I am paralyzed

too much so to turn around

At all

I caught separate aspects,

Half-following and turning back

Unspeaking

Silent

Alone

II. In Medias Res

Fifty years for you

And perhaps fifty more for me

Wondering

(I grow old, I grow old)

Spending, wasting the time wondering

(But how should I presume?)

To track an action through the centuries

To track an idea through the hearts

Of thousands

Or just

To open my mouth

And speak to one

(Who would have been fine with it, probably,

When I think about it logically)

III. The Eternal Footman Snickers

This is foolish, this confession

This is unwise

For I cannot expect this to be seen favorably

In another's eyes

I write it down but will I say, who knows?

(I know I will regret this in an hour or a year)

Maybe it will never leave the tunnels of my mind,

Maybe it will only live as throbbing drumming in my ears

But I think that it might soothe something just to put it down,

(I know I will regret this in a year or half an hour)

Down anonymous pathways paved with whitewashed cinder,

(Which is how I see the Internet, untouched by tree or flower)

And I'm half-expecting sympathy and half-expecting naught,

Driven by something restless under yellow fogs of thought.

IV. Denouement

I pace. I pace. I turn around.

The streets seethe.

It's the hour of smoke and steam.

Red phone booths clash with pillared porticoes.

A geodesic dome looms in twilight.

I search faces mechanically,

Scan the ground for fluttering brown.

Hoping for a second chance.

I pace. I pace. I turn around.

This is absurd. I blame psychology. I still can't stop.

Children chase their shadowy parents, who are chasing something else.

Multicolored trinkets whir and bark like hellhounds, with citrine buzz.

This writing style is laughable.

You're hilarious, dear.

I'm not T. S. Eliot, nor was meant to be.

I'm not Romana, Rose, or River.

I'm not even jadesfire22.

You don't know who I am.

I think. I hope.

Blue squares flash past, a patch of multicolored scarf.

A statue with mouth rent in pain

And with a strange angelic resemblance.

Why do you torment me? Are you?

I sip bitter orange soda and lean akimbo on bridges, mocking my own grief.

This has happened before. It'll happen again. Time's the only relief.

(Or personal growth.)

You're hilarious, dear.

I pace. I pace. I turn around.

Silence will fall.

You're hilarious, dear.

But it won't - its curtain will hang forever.

My mouth twitches like a hooked fish.

I listen for the ticking of the clock.

(But it doesn't. It's always the same time here.)

All quotes and references not to Doctor Who are to The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock ("I grow old," "I am not T.S. Eliot, nor was meant to be," "The Eternal Footman Snickers," "yellow fog," and "How should I presume?")