I am champagne bubbles
And fairy wings
And confetti sprinkles
And heart-thudding bass
And dizzy melody
And all the shining city lights that show you the
Way home

I am all these things
And every floating, giddy thought
15 again
For the first time in forever
Painting glitter on every horizon
Because I can't contain the smiles on my lips

I thought I had seen my future
Saw nothing stretched out before me
But a never-ending monotone of lukewarm
Indifference
All passion flung away from me
For fear of feeling the
Mediocrity
I'd accepted

There was no fire there
There was no shine there
There was barely anything I'd want to call
Life
There
And something softly whispered to me
"You'll never be happy
In this unremarkable place."

I'm still reeling from the shock
Of waking up
Of finding myself with heart pounding
Breath catching
Eyes wide open
Giddy with the swooping butterflies of new beginnings

I'm still reeling from the realization
That I started over
Took a brazen leap away from boredom
And landed in all the sensations I was sure had
Abandoned me

They weren't gone, after all
Just waiting for the right wake-up call

Sitting here
Face tingling
Fingertips dancing across brighter days
I've been wondering how I ever entertained the thought
Of an eternity that was anything less than
Thrilling

I never realized the stickiness of apathy
The creeping, oozing film it left
One day I found myself
Trapped
Stuck like fly in honey
Without will to struggle
Lackadaisical and lost
Staring at a sun that would surely fry me

It was only stalking predator
That sent me straining against my bonds
Desperate, suddenly, to be anywhere
Anywhere
Anywhere but here
The threat to my serenity
Made my captivity real

He would swallow everything I was
So I fought to care for freedom
Fought to care for
Myself
Bat my tacky wings
Until I whole-body Band-aid ripped myself
Away

He would swallow everything I was
Do not follow me
I commanded
Do not follow me
Do not follow
*I am my own

There are these moments all the time
Where I think, "This is not the life I signed up for.
This can't be my life.
This
Is
Not
My
Life."
But I am dizzy and hungover,
Stumbling to the kitchen for water
Wondering how I got home last night.
25
and tail-spinning--
How did I get here?

Last night
I had a glimpse of many could-have-beens.
I found myself wistful for a life I never had,
Risks I never took,
Words I let fizzle out on my tongue,
Courage that left me when I should have chased it.
A boy with a brogue nearly brought me to tears
Drunk and disoriented
Inadvertently reminding me of a future that's
No longer mine.

After every margarita
It feels like I'm falling further and further
And I'm scrabbling without footing,
Tired and dizzy,
Losing my way,
Wondering what all I've walked away from
All these years
Because I was always so scared.

One day, I found myself falling like Alice
But without a white rabbit
Just me
Alone
Abruptly tumbling down
The floor having been decidedly yanked from beneath me

I found plummeting both terrifying and boring
The same panic over and over
Gets old after a time
Yet the bottom was little better
Devoid of a fluffy tail to follow
I have no guide in this empty place
Walled in with my thoughts
Hoping for a path to Wonderland

"Drink Me"

I'm not sure how I got here
Searching endlessly for answers
To questions that I have not even posed
Gazing helplessly at the chasm
Wondering if I can back out

"Someday you'll be Queen of Wonderland
Drink Me"

I was certain I could play the long game
Persevere to be better off in the end
Yet I lay here ******-knuckled
Having beaten solid rock
Hoping it would turn into
A Door

"You'll never leave if you don't hurry
Drink Me"

I hear tic-tock-ing through the walls
And I'm sure it's just the pressure now
I'm never getting out of here
No amount of wracking my brain
Will produce an escape plan
And it does not seem as though any creature
Will be appearing to assist
I am never getting out of here

"Don't be frustrated
Drink Me"

"Feeling stuck?
Drink Me"

"Drink Me"

"Drink Me"

"Drink Me"

It was raining in the desert,
Fat drops splashing
Against dunes that didn't know how to
Absorb them.
The flooding was quick,
The haze was unbearable,
And I wondered idly
If the clouds had gotten
Lost,
Jumped onto some
Wayward jet stream
And wound up in Abu Dhabi instead of Seattle.

I felt for them.

Muddy sand rivers that couldn't handle the
Downpour
Had me asking myself what jet stream I'd jumped
To end up here,
Never quite where I wanted to be,
Setting my course for brighter days
But landing
In a heap
In the middle of
Nowhere.

These are the days no one warned me about
When my head feels so heavy
It won’t lift from my pillow
When making a cup of coffee
Seems like an insurmountable task
When everything
Everything
Is stupid and useless and worthless
And I can’t remember what it was like to feel fine

I don’t know how I got here
I don’t remember the wrong turn that I took
The wrong exit on the highway
The wrong class
The wrong decision
The wrong something
But it must have happened at some point
Because this can’t be how it’s supposed to be
Spending days drowning in Chinese food and wine
Wishing the sun just won’t rise tomorrow