Wonderland, Wonderland
Why do I keep coming back?
Is it the giant mountains
Or the flowing streams?
Wonderland, Wonderland
Why do I return?
Is it the people there
Or my love for Wonderfood?
Wonderland, Wonderland
Why do they hate me?
I walk, they scream
I talk, they beat
Wonderland, Wonderland
Why can't I be perfect?
With pretty hair
And big doe eyes
Wonderland, Wonderland
When did you become a twisted place?
Was it the screams
Or the nights of crying?
Wonderland, Wonderland
I don't know you any more.
With your ferocious monsters
And sniveling thieves
Wonderland, Wonderland
This is the end for me
I'll jump the bridge
Or pop the pills
Underland, Underland
I hope you welcome me
It was a quick ride here
I hope they know what they did

Hello, this is wonderland
Everyone has gone mad
If you're normal,
This place will change that.
Welcome to wonderland

You'll wonder what's the matter,
When you meet the mad hatter.
You'll wander to that little drink,
That seems to have made you shrink.
But be warned of the cake most of all,
For it will make you grow so tall.

Hello, this is wonderland,
Everyone has gone mad.
If you're normal,
We'll change that.
Welcome to wonderland.

You'll meet the White Rabbit,
And be curious about his habbits.
The Cheshire Cat will be a scare,
Once you see, he's not all there.
Now the Knave of Hearts,
Never stole the Red Queen's tarts.

Hello, this is Wonderland.
Everyone has gone mad.
If you're normal,
We'll change that.
Welcome to Wonderland.

It's a wonderful place,
Here in Wonderland.
There's monsters to face,
Here in Wonderland.
They'll drive you mad,
We can't change that.
If you have any fears,
You'll meet them here,
In Wonderland.
We're all mad here in Wonderland.

Hello, this is wonderland.
Everyone has gone mad.              
If you're normal,
We'll change that.
Welcome to Wonderland.

So here we go again, tumbling down a rabbit hole, insistent on trying to find something curiouser and curiouser.

Life is an adventure, and fortunately, or not so much, mine is a constant trip to Wonderland, through the Jabberwocky's lair and the Queen of Hearts' castle and the winding paths to the mad tea party, my favorite place to go. We're all mad here, and I revel in  it.

When I started this journey through Wonderland, I was certain it would be a place I hated, ahbored, feared, vilified. The wonder ****** me in, but once I was aware of my surrounding I didn't like so much anymore.

But now Wonderland is home, where my heart sets its beats and my brain rests its heavy head, where I sing goodnight moon to the stars and sleep in the soft glow of their shine. I love it. I love me. There is no one that this Grace would rather be.

I compare myself to Alice, but I feel more like a sister now, one going through her experiences but feeling differently than she ever would. True, we're both polite and curious and blonde and sweet, but her eyes shine blue while mine glow green, showing her sadness and my envy, causing a utter travesty to Wonderland between the two of us.

I was the girl who turned into the Jabberwocky, and it makes much more sense for her to defeat me. To lead me out of the darkness and into the light, making me remember who I was and who I want to be.

Anyway, Alice is a visitor of Wonderland. Grace lives here, knows nothing but here. She may traverse the human world every once in awhile, but Wonderland is where she has grown, where she will always belong.

For once I see Alice as my friends, my family, those I love. They curiously visit my Wonderland, they see its sights and its horrors, and they only come to visit when there is a great party or a great fear. They do not live here. Only I, only Grace, live here.

Maybe I should be less afraid of bringing another young girl into this Wonderland, for who better to help traverse it than the one who owns it? And if the daughter I bring only is a visitor too, that;s just as fine. As long as the love we have for each other is a shining beacon that lights up Wonderland even in its darkest hours. For her, Wonderland will try its best to be what it was made to be; Wonderful.

And to thank all those who have helped, those who have changed and been curious enough to enter my land so different from their own, I have but one name for the daughter, given I have her.

I'll name her Alice.

"Crazy, absurd, nothing as it seems"
That's the advertisement for Wonderland
"Wonderland is where the sea meets the mountain
And the cakes melt like ice cream"
Why in the world has Wonderland come to my town?
"You can be happy in Wonderland, why don't you come and visit?"
When Wonderland comes I know to be happy
For when Wonderland comes it comes only to me
"In Wonderland you can be wherever you want to be
Except for home, you can never be home when you're in Wonderland"
Now I know why Wonderland came here
It didn't
My mind made up Wonderland

there are nights where i stay up daydreaming of a wonderland

a wonderland of vignetted sepia books and tea stained lips,
a wonderland where the sun hides for a while, and lets us be real
a wonderland where no one else exists
so that my arms persist on staying around you

a wonderland where my hands lay in yours
while we read sappy poetry
poetry no one else we know would find interesting
but poetry that means the world to us;

a wonderland where rain falls in my backyard on orange trees
to the setting of our eyes like big blue seas
never parting
leaves rustling

a wonderland where music plays and sways so sway with me
to a light thunder storm
and kiss me slowly
so we can keep each others lips warm

because its cold in our winter wonderland
but a little cold never stopped anyone
a little cold in life slows us down, but we put on our jumpers and forge on

so forge on
my dear winter girl,
because i know that sometimes
a house isn't really a home
and it gets hard when I'm alone
so come whenever you feel like you cant stand
and lay with me, in our own winter wonderland.

Welcome to Wonderland,
A place to feed your head.
Welcome to Wonderland,
Where you can only go in bed.
Welcome to Wonderland,
Where creativity abounds.
Welcome to Wonderland,
A place where your feet won't touch the ground.
Welcome to Wonderland,
A place to free your mind.
Welcome to Wonderland,
Where when you search, you find.
Welcome to Wonderland,
A place to feed your head.
Welcome to Wonderland,
Where you can only go when you're dead.

My little blue dress hangs in my closet now, and my black ribbon is around my wrist and not my hair. I've cut my long blonde hair shorter, and my childhood fantasies are a mere haunting that reach to me at night, reminding me of who I am.

I once dreamt of you as a wonderland, a place of fear and magic and horror that I would suffer a thousand lives to feel a moment of.

Then I grew older, and recognized that this wasn't a wonderland; or perhaps, it was, but not quite the wonderland I was thinking of. This wonderland had a name, a name that came with frightening connotations.

Bipolar.

Those fantastical moments in which I was flying, in which nothing but the flowers could sing with me as I danced in a purple field of wonder. Where the bluebells kissed my hands and the crochet was with hedgehogs and the pond behind my house was much more than it seemed.

Bipolar.

Each corner I turned in which a shadow hid behind, shadows I could only see and that chased me through the darkness unto the stairs and into my bed, holding me tight and strangling me until I woke up and realized everything was ok.

Bipolar.

Each friend I made as a child at night that wasn't tangible, though we shook hands and danced and read books together as if we were real. As if anything was real.

Bipolar.

It was a game I was playing that I didn't know was hardwired into my brain, that this wasn't just Grace and her wonderland, it was something darker, deeper. But alas, that's how it is as you age, isn't it?


Wonderland gets darker with each visit, and with each day it grows closer to me. Its terrifying how it may begin to affect others, others i love, but there's not much I can do, is there?

My one wish is that there will not be another blonde little girl, with my green eyes and my blue dress, finding herself stumbling into a wonderland that she cannot handle.

If it means I can never have the one thing I want more than anything, then I am willing to sacrifice everything to protect that little girl.

I will never lead another little girl into wonderland.

Never.

Its not love.

Now don't think I'm crazy. I swear I'm not, at least not mostly. But its true, its not love, it can't be yet, its been one night and I'd be a true psychotic if I thought it was.

Once I thought one night was love, but I was also high off the fumes of my own cruelty and didn't know left from right and Up from Toy Story.

But it matters.

Not in the way you think, God, I swear not like that. I am not mentally able to catch feelings right now as I stumble through the vacant halls of my own sanity, or better put, the filled asylum of my own insanity.

Still, though.

It was a night I could be me, a night I want to feel again, where I'm bare and broken and real and **** and that doesn't happen very often for me. My mask of smiles and lies tend to hide everything, but not that night, and not with you.

Here in this new sect of Wonderland I can be me , be Grace, with little to no question. Well, there's been some rejection and tears and pain and all the average Wonderland shenanigans, but its been magical. I feel like Wonderland is a place I can live in again.

In old Wonderland, I was beginning to suffocate, to feel the cold hand of stability take over me. But I am not ready for that, I'm ready for freedom and dancing in the rain and having *** until the moon goes to bed.

I wasn't ready to be in love with the Caterpillar. Crazy, considering I always thought it was he who was unprepared, but all along it was me.

Guess I can't live my life wondering what's just around the river bend, I have to investigate. I have to know. Things must get curiouser and curiouser, its how it goes.

Let my youth wash over me, let my childlike Wonderland wash over my eyes and let me be me for awhile. Its not normal for me to be this malleable. Everything used to be lies, but now everything is freedom, and for now I love it.

Thank you for that night. Its a beginning, a new one, for Wonderland and I. Why?

Because for the first time in forever, Grace of Wonderland is free.