In the time you were gone, I found myself filled with extra space. Nothing too obvious; not gaping holes in my stomach, nor chunks from my arm. Rather, they were minute cracks that ensnared me. These unwanted holes appeared at random; when someone spoke of sandwiches, I felt a soft ***** in the back of my mind. When I encountered a full moon, I felt a throb in the tips of my fingers. And sometimes, when I caught sight of a dollar bill, a pang of nostalgia bit me somewhere deep down in my chest. This discomfort never lasted long. These cracks never formed one excruciating pain – the kind that fully consumes, but diminishes over time like a large hole in a wall that will soon be filled in. These cracks I felt, this empty space, it affected me demurely. As some cracks were filled in, new ones spread forth. My disrepair did not increase nor decrease in the years to come, but rather, spread out to different locations, as I patched and filled along the way. My foundation as a person grew perpetually flawed, yet remained stable enough to stay upright. My eventual remedy was to simply remember this; I am a structure made of concrete. Wear me down, and all you get is more concrete. In this way, it was okay that you were gone. In this way, I discovered the weight of time and also, the art of saying goodbye.

(The Art of Failing Goodbye)

I covet your closeness; how could I not? You were my world once upon a mime. Honestly. Though my pride will deny it, our demise left me discarded. Hiding amongst the few collateral souvenirs: stupidity and bitterness.

I bestowed to you the best of me; although you never asked me to. My heart, body, and soul - yours for the taking - a decision made on my own accord. Because you never asked me for any of it. You never asked me to do the things I did. But I loved you - innocent as that. Thus, relinquishing logic entirely.

Hardly more than a stranger, I felt I knew you; unaware of the lidded fabulist within. A mere tourist of my chassis; enthralled by my looks. Enthralled by just me. “In love” so deep, you attempted suicide twice. Upon my rejection – in theory. They almost beat you to death, and left you to the wolves. Deserved it? An understatement tenfold. And yet. My compassion was what saved you.

I protected the same entity who pulverized my own.

They all said you were no good – they said a mythomaniac would leach onto me until there was nothing left, ****** dry – then you would leave. Onto the next; life on the move. Daddy said you’d leave me in shambles. Was he right?

…Duh.

A question sheathed in rhetoric; absolutely. A black hole does not give back. Wake UP, m Maple – Ali – Oliver – whatever you are today.mWake up, you ******. And look here.

You ruthied(sp?) me last Halloween, took my body as your own, enabled a cycle I’ll no longer accept. The girl who cried ****…an alias to forever haunt me.

No one believed me then. Why would they now?

This final hurrah; a Halloween blackout. Wherein, you personified my worst nightmare. A cruel and unusual punishment – at best. And then.

You slithered and slinked away; no apologies – no goodbye for me. You’d taken all of me. Just like they said. All my value – dismembered and pocketed. Off you went…as predicted. Onto the next…life on the move.

You etched your gimmick; smuggling trust; squirreling intuition - these morals I'd entombed - you burrowed away. Promising Eden, you offered a map; directing me as I sailed the route. The garden, however, was not what I found. My catafalque(coffin) negated expectations you set; a utopia of dazzling, abundant nature. For, you'd devised a mousetrap; and I'd glissaded willingly inside…

For the very last time, gaze entwined. Blue on brown.

SNAP.

She frolicked through trouble, and dandled with mischief. Alison Wonderland; everything I wished I was and so much more. Ever emanating her doe-eyed façade; proclaiming our jests mere “mischief.”
Yet, an unspoken verdict (Foretaste? Conception? Notion?) had cloaked the truth: wickedness rippled beneath our parade.
I nuzzled her contours; my peripheral eye – nailed to her profile, her blueprints, her chassis. I stalked her mirage – dancing with vapor.
She glissaded about, no fool to my truth, varnishing my mantle.
I belonged to Alison: perpetually at her side. Our couplet became a “we.” So, We regretted nothing. We veered for the pyre: caroming(skimming?) those embers alit with vice.
She narrated my mental seminar. Discarding my dogmas to uphold her own; and thus, my mind was hers.
My mind was her mind.
Alison made heads turn, and mouths water, as we sidled – hand in hand – down the street. She was my Christmas morning: each colloquium – giftwrapped with finesse. She personified paradise, she illustrated utopia. Hatching our Carnival; netting us, enamored, sidling the Carousal. We’d skim, we’d sail, her halo – my fossil. Her lips, her eyes, her hands… they echoed the innocence of a child. Niave, innocent, and giftwrapped in wonder.
Little Miss Wonderland: my very own fairytale. She was mine alone; she was mine to keep.
Did I want her, or did I want to be her?
Alison Wonderland.
Her aura – so celestial – paralleled my prose. When she banished my husk – Maple Thatcher – I cackled good riddance… And I grew a new personality to accommodate her own.
For, without Ali – devoid of our we – I doubted the very existence of me.
On my composition, she bestowed rhythm. She gave tune to my silence; her chimes, her cadence. My ink was her song – fusing a symphony. A symphony of Alison: the melody to solidify our tryst.
My mind was her mind.
And yet… somehow, I missed a carriage – or two – aboard her train of thought. For, the same felon spiting my existence, was the angel I loved to life. Gladly, I huffed, and I puffed, and I blew Maple down.
Fused against Alison, I needed none of Maple.
Carnival infatuations…

Alison Wonderland.