She climbed out of the window to her bedroom and into the cool night sky. Dressed in black ripped jeans and a dark colored hoodie, so she dissolves into the darkness.
A case of Corona in her hand, she jumps the few feet to the ground. Her knees bend to soften the harsh landing. She stands back up to her full height, though it isn’t that tall.
Her hood, covers her face so that she is a mystery.
The night time accepts her with open arms, understanding that she needs to be unknown for the time being to be her true self.
She stalks away from her ‘home’. Her sharp, rushed movements standing out against the white walls. Then she breaks off into a run, wanting to get away as fast as she can, not being able to stand being close any longer. She runs to her night time escape, laying down in the middle of the field underneath the leafless tree.
She looks up at the stars, wondering who each one was.
What kind of souls turn into stars when their time on earth is up?
She lets the hope that she is one of those souls slip into her mind just this time. But for only a moment, before pushing it away.
Her experience with hope has shown her that it only brings pain and heartbreak.
She reaches over to the 6-pack and takes a bottle out, sitting up. It settles into her hand like it has been destined to since it’s creation, comfortable between her fingers. She takes the bottle opener out of her left pocket and brings it to the lips of the bottle. The top pops off in one fluid motion, the practice she’s had making it as easy as breathing. She brings the rim to her chapped angry red lips, then tilts it up quickly, taking a short sweet sip of the poison ambrosia.
It tickles as it slides smoothly down her throat. She lets a small content sigh slip out and be taken away in the breeze. At home, that is how she feels sitting underneath that tree.
The stars are her shelter and the field is her bed, soft and welcoming, the tree, an old friend. Here she lets the tears run freely down her face. The salt water mixing with the bitter taste of alcohol.
She’s screaming, wailing.
Asking the universe why she hates herself so much, why they don’t want her. Why can’t he love her the way she loves him? Why can’t she already be dead? Maybe then he would realize just how much she meant to him, how much he meant to her.
As she lets this fire slip from her throat, she doesn’t notice the boy dressed in blue on the other side of the field. She doesn’t realize she isn’t alone until he is sitting next to her with one hand grasping hers.
She startles when his skin comes in contact with hers. Then she looks at him, his blue eyes, blue face, blue heart, blue soul, unsure if he can be let into her secret home. He sees her hesitate, so he brings her hand to his lips and whispers his secrets into her skin.
The tenseness in her shoulders is released and she squeezes his hand tightly. They are both on a mission to escape the lives they live.
Both have minds burdened with memories and bodies littered with scars. Running from the demons in their homes.
She reaches over to the cardboard keeper of sins and plucks another bottle from its grasp. She takes the opener and rips the top from the bottle’s lips, handing it to the Blue Boy.
He takes it with the hand not wrapped in hers and brings it to his lips quickly. Tilting it back, he downs the whole bottle. He sets the empty bottle back into the cardboard as its poison takes effect.
Then he’s stumbling to his feet and dragging her with him, towards the forest standing menacingly behind them.
She runs after him, feet not quite touching the ground and laughter hanging in their air. Engulfed in darkness under the canopy, they giggle and whisper secrets of death.
Without the stars to see by, they fall into a rabbit hole. Spiraling down to their private Wonderland, where there is no home for them and the Mad Hatter is their friend.
They can run through clouds and save each other from the demons under their beds.
Their bruises scream, convicting the guilty and their memories wail in relief from them.
But Alice couldn’t stay in her Wonderland, so neither can they. Waking from their dream, back underneath the tree, weeping at the loss of the make believe and forced to go back to reality, where their demons have them in a choke hold and the guilty hide behind atrocious lies.

I found myself under
the dance of flashing lights
and dimming night,
of talking clouds
and breathing hours,
the hands of time
would tick in his hand;
loud enough he told me
as his voice reverberates in my ear,
"Welcome to Wonderland."

What a world it would be
if the moon were the sun,
if the sky was the land,
or if darkness never won.
What a world it would be
if the dreamers never dreamed,
if the losers always lost,
or if the poets knew of fun.
What a world it would be
if Alice never fell,
if her looking glass was solid,
or if her heart was icy cold.
What a world it would be
if backwards meant forwards,
if humans never settled,
or if God's word was blurred.
What a world it would be
if everything were backwards,
if Alice was happy,
or if the hatter wasn't mad.
What a world it would be
if right meant wrong,
if white was black,
or if politicians knew of love.
What a world it would be
if the killers gave flowers,
if the lovers really loved,
or if love would alway last.
It be a wonderland of sorts,
a world made of nonsense,
but it be worth it to have
if sadness meant happiness,
if beggars gave cheers,
or if hatred meant kindness.
It be a world I could live in
if acceptance reigned on,
if everything meant nothing
there'd be nothing to con.
We would all be the same
nobody would be wrong.
If we lived in a wonderland
we would all move along.
We'd be lost in our heads
singing our own little song.

I tripped down an endless rabbit hole
Some might say I was swallowed
I fell down, down and tumbled around
Until I forgot the land of tomorrow.

I met Alice and she was darling
We sipped tea and spoke of rhymes
Trying to decode the words of the Hatter
Searching for where the rabbit lost his time.

We danced on the shore of day and night
Followed paths until they were swept away
And when we were tired and had enough
We snuck into court and extended our stay.

Alice and I, oh how we fell
Off the earth and into an abyss
Absorbed by each other, forgetting our troubles
Spending each remaining day in complete bliss.

I love these old snickelways
and lanes in York, my second home.
This one's dark, damp, mysterious,
narrow single file uneven path,
cantilevered street lamp half way down,
sun setting at the far end.

A woman walks ahead, squeezing
through, blinding sunlit halo.
Difficult to distinguish. Not quite right.

'Can I help', I cry. She just moans
and shuffles on, head lolling,
curious scarf wrapped round her neck.

A postcard from the shop next door explains:
'Alice Smith lived here,
died in eighteen hundred and twenty-five.
Hanged for being mad.
Mad Alice Lane, York'.

Every story started
With a "Once Upon a Time"
A kiss to end
It's a Happy Ever After,
isn't it sublime?

A prince and a princess,
or two souls from the same star;
Upon meeting, each other did they miss
Only three words to keep
only a moment of bliss.

To shake off the hatred,
and put in the divine.
He simply gazed at her;
A fiery apparition, dreadful, beautiful
other-worldly in a dress of lime.

So and so, in the name of Love
Cupid's arrow;
Could say it was a wasted thing
Falling from the skies above,
Disaster will soon follow.

Dear boy, from the steps of high,
Grey clouds hiding a summer sky.
This ending, did you know it by
The hurt of this world, words to suffer
Did you think you could fly?

You let her know,
And you think she felt like it was just a show;
An elaborate veil of trickery
Interchangeable as a river's flow
No matter what else, it hit you like a blow.

But if you only knew, dear boy
The love she harbored like hidden, sweetened wine.
Too much would **** her, but to taste it is too fine.
Enough to counter fallacies or lies, a truth over too many tries,
But you already left without knowing the signs.

She loved you, but only if she enough knew.
The monstrous hurt, the peace too few.
Things that haunted your head at night,
That kept you from people, out of sight,
She tried to keep you safe, but now you've taken flight.

You're gone, she's not alright;
Your passing is a daily visitor in her sleepless nights.
You could have still been her everything,
If not for the dangers her being with you posed.
She should have, she could have; now you're just a ghost.

The crazy things we do for Love:
Not only to defy an inferno,
But even to curse the heavens above.
But when it's Life and its traditions coming to cut the thread
There's only little time left until the feelings are dead.

Dying until there's something to save it;
A raging fire falling into embers to ashes,
Waiting for Love and its holy answers.
Hope is like a thunderous night on the prow of a ship,
being broken and tested through a tempest.

But that ship's broken; she's barely survived,
The anchor's gone, the fires aren't alive.
She's the hollow of one; Pan's spectre floating in the moonlight.
There wasn't anything else to keep those eyes bright,
Only a silhouette of what you could have been; a rare and beautiful, fleeting sight.

If Alice only knew, but, unchangeable, this is now your fate.
If she only knew how quick this would take you.
Protection over something loved could **** too;
If she only knew what thing else to do,
To show love, to hold you, but now you're gone and it's too late.

For the smallest of stature,
She was the biggest in the room.
It lit up whenever she entered,
And I did all that I could to not make a fool of myself.

It only took a weekend for me to fall hard.
She was quirky, but serious,
She was cute, but beautiful,
And I tried everything that I could to not get reeled in.

Less than seventy two hours...
That's all it took for me to feel like I had fallen seventy two stories.
And just like that,
I had to leave her and Ellicot City behind.

It was the longest three hour drive.
Back to New York City I went,
Leaving her and the weekend in my rear view mirror.
Heaven only knows when I'll see her again.