Kneel beyond my throne, unaware it was born of lies.
Eyes linger on my every move, whispers shouting.
Am I meant to replicate perfection, or just die trying?
Cold smiles approach, thinking they have uncovered my tell-tale heart.

I am a seasoned ghost.

Being raised to suffer, I have learned to hide.
To mold myself to fit the standards of society.
To grit my teeth and stand still as my form shifts once again.
Knowing the brief seconds of waking are a soft euphoria I will soon miss.

I wake to a dawn meant only for the dying.

I wake to reset my own jaw,
bending my bones backwards
with the occasional crack,
a ritual ensuring I resemble something human.

People believe I am powerful, successful, happy,
(but i am as fragile as frost on a window touched by morning).
My costume is convincing, but I am chronically ill.
Invisibly so, and so the pretending continues.

The dead trees whispered to me in my sleep about happy endings.
(I should have known better than to talk to strangers.)
Maybe the bottomless wine glasses were a dream and I’ll wake up.
(she didn’t wake up)

I heard them say, “His blood turned sour long ago.”
I smiled back at the shadows, nodding my head –
yes.
(But I can’t resist the taste of bitter citrus.)

Do you paint stories across the walls of your mind?
(We accept the love we think we deserve.)
Adrenaline and attraction intertwined at last.
(When is a monster no longer a monster?)

Oh, how the moonlight dances upon despair,
(I have learned to waltz with my own shadow.)
We whispered confessions to the night so still,
(Are secrets safe when whispered to darkness?)

Listen to the symphony in the chaos we created...
(When does the hunted become the hunter?)
In a universe full of paradoxes, what do you believe?
(I stare into a broken mirror, unsure which piece is mine.)

At the edge of reality, where does it end?
Burning alive, my white dress turns into black ash,
I smile, and ask if you’re happy.
(The trees whisper back that you are.)

I don’t remember when I became friends with the rabbit.  
It must have been when I was too young to know that
Rabbits aren’t supposed to talk or
Keep time with pocket watches.

I quite liked how the clocks spun backwards and the doorways shrunk.
I often laughed at the way colors swirled or
The funny way mirrors distorted images.
But only the rabbit and his friends understood.

Kids at school would laugh when I told them about my tea parties with no tea.
Apparently, the clocks didn’t spin backwards for them.
Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't.
And contrariwise, what it is, it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would.

I learned to hide the fact that the sky was green and the grass was blue.
Picking my personality from my pocket, I became a walking mirror.
Yes, yes, the sky is blue and the grass is green and the clocks spin forwards and the mirrors are not silly and the colors do not swirl and the voices do not wondrously whisper in your ear.

The rabbit would try to console me. (For he was the only one who was not mad.)
I cried and cried and the more I cried the more the sky turned green.
For the first time I begged and pleaded that it would turn to blue. (But it never did.)
I quite liked the world until the rest of the world decided it didn’t like me.

Please do not lock me up again in that awfully small white room, I really did not like it in there.
Please do not burn me at the stake for showing you a glimpse of my world.
Please do not cast me out in sin for being me.
Please let me live in my world, and I will let you live in yours.