Grace has made it through Wonderland, and has seemed to find peace with it for the time being, so where does she go from here? This would be easy if like in books things just ended, closed up in a neat little bow at the end of the story and there is resolution.

But there is no resolution here. Just a desperate craving for meaning again.

I guess since my Wonderland is stable, the only thing left wrong is me.

Not to say that the baubles and do-dads in my head are still broken, no, Wonderland is at peace, remember? Must get you checked for that memory of yours, good sir.

Regardless, my ducks are trying to row and I must follow their orders as to not rock the boat. Nonetheless, though, who is Grace? I've been working so hard to keep the Jabberwockys at bay and stop the wars from coming and protect the heads from rolling, that it's like some part of me is missing. I feel like a hodge-podge, a hedgehog, speeding around and around in lost wonder trying to find something but never quite sure what.

Is writing truly the only distinctive, certain characteristic I have, with no contradictions and carpenters and changes? Is it the only solid footing I have on the edge of tomorrow? Am I not much else, with as much substance as a sellophone?

Everything seems to cancel, make me some sort of odd creation of jumbled things that don't seem like they would fit right at all, but enough glue was pumped into me that practically anything seems to stick.

I'm covered in glitter and polish, getting thicker each day, making me someone new with each passing coat. I'm not gaining weight, so is my inner soul just melting away?

Can a person just become polish? A person who creates themselves instead of something made, genuine, and real? Am I even Grace anymore, should I adopt a new name as if to show the difference that has taken a hold of me since my name was born years ago? Will I reach the point that when someone wants to know me and starts to chip the paint away, that by the end there is nothing behind the color at all? Will I become nothing but choices and farces to the point they are me?

I have no clue how to get back. Can I? The paths behind are gone, the bread I've been crumbling to save my path was gone years ago, as the Chesire Cat promised I'd find my way if I had nowhere to go. But guess now I have no way and have somewhere to go, and he's not to be found. Typical.

Do I want to get back? Am I too attached to my polish now?

My polish was layered to make others happy, so who am I without others, without the affections and pleasing of others? I don't know. That's terrifying. I can't do alone, and I have led myself here more and more with each passing day. I don't think I can be alone ever again, or the Jabberwocky will certainly **** me. I wish it was a maybe, but for once I can't even rely on those.

Guess I better keep on layering the polish and glitter, trying to find a semblance of who I once was. Maybe a mix of now and who I am? Possibly that could work.

Now only if I knew who I was at all.

That would make choosing polishing colors much easier.

It came back.

It was gone for so long and I had straightened up everything and things were actually even better, and the second my back was turned too long, there it was. The Jabberwocky.

I knew the second I saw it how it had gotten in. I had been in the front, tending to my new garden that I had acquired, with beautiful roses all about. I had never been so happy. And while I turned away, and left my back door open to tend to the outside, it came in and ate all my reserves and made itself at home again.

Unlike before, though, when I went inside it didn’t coax me into letting it stay, letting it swallow me whole. It began to shriek at me and attack me and I was so scared and I kept on telling it to go away, that I didn’t want it anymore but it stayed and fought and chased me through the house, wrecking all the scars I had repaired and pretty new things I had put up since its last visit. It wasn’t until I let it scratch my legs that it listened to my desperate, hollow pleas. It went away, slinking back into the darkness it came from.

I stayed up in my room for a while, tending to my small wounds and thanking God, Gods, anyone for letting me live. I looked around and cuddled into my bed and thought it wasn’t so bad. I smiled and even laughed a little bit. No, the Jabberwocky could not get me now. Things were different. It knew I didn’t want it, that’s why it fought. That’s why it lost.

But eventually, as I finally descended back into the rest of my home, I saw the damage it had caused. The stairway was scarred and scratched, the living room was a terror, and the kitchen worse. It had left me bare, empty, raw once more. I had been careless, reckless, stupid. What had made me think it wouldn’t come back again?

I started to clean, to paint, to polish, trying to rid my house of any of its signature marks. Maybe not fully, leave reminders for myself of its danger, but tidy enough no one could tell just by looking at it. Everything was a dandy cleanup, until I saw my legs again. The Jabberwocky may not have destroyed me, but I had given it something. I had let it have a part of me.

The rage started to build. I had left the door open, I hadn’t made letting the Jabberwocky in a non-option. I had let myself flirt with its darkness a little bit every once in a while, letting it think it was welcome. I had let it scratch me instead of telling it to get out more forcefully, instead of pushing it and fighting it harder. I had given it a token, a present, to make it leave me alone. That only teaches any good monster to come back for more. I had made the mistake, I had made the choice, I had ****** up. I, I, I am selfish, stupid, wrong. It wasn’t long before I was screaming.

My rage was so strong as I angrily cleaned my house that the Bandersnatch caught the scent and almost stopped by. Bandersnatches convince you to take the fire out on those you love, at any drop of a hat. They play practical jokes that benefit them and them alone, laughing their souls off while you alienate yourself. They were good friends of Jabberwockys.

But when I saw it near my back fence, I silenced.

No. No more. I didn’t want any more monsters, not after how long I hid them in my basement and held them in my heart. They weren’t allowed here. This wasn’t their home. It was mine.

So I locked the back door, and closed the front gate, and bolted the first door, and never stayed up too late. When they barged in for my head I was at no fault, and had every right to call for help, but when I let them waltz right in like an old friend I had some blame in my heart. But those monsters of Wonderland, I had never loved. I had merely no memory of a life without them. Now that there is a fence and a door and they’re not allowed anymore, I must do all I can to keep them away. They don’t deserve my heart, nor my head. Though I am a person of Wonderland, I don’t deserve to be dead.

Lured to a fake wonderland
I grew jealous when you kissed the falling snow
Gliding along the ice, sinking between the cracks
It was a platonic toxin coursing through our veins
A beautiful creature of despair


Wake up in spring, lying in a grave
Lost in a dark forest unfolding our imagination
Obviate the worst night of our life
Surrounded by a million white coats crunching numbers
Watching experiments smouldering behind the glass
Strapped to tables, trapped by a colorful mind
I hardly recognize the reflection lost inside
When lurid collisions entertain these nightmares
The only thing left is scars

By summer, it's a world of tragedy
Giving into hate, accepting lies
Another roller coaster meant for a thrill
Bleeding through the neck of the hourglass
Slipping oozing black silk said to be medicine
Faceless, heartless breathing machine
Simulating numbers for accurate results
When there are no accurate answers
It's simply a beautiful stream of cold cases

Autumn floats away
Love closed the door
Left, an empty house
Not an echo, not a whisper, not a scream
Not a mutter, an apology
Just a bite of stone
Buried underneath a river of memories
Lost in a broken clock, still ticking
Forgotten in shattered words
A masterpiece disappeared in four seasons

I'm somewhere and nowhere.

Hear me out. This isn't meant to be profound or riddling, just me. Granted I throw up walls like a kid who ate too much cake on his birthday, but today its just me. I promise.

I know that can hard to believe, even for me. Some days I'm euphoric, some days I'm broken, or bitter or boisterous or batty. But today, I'm in between. Not in the extreme sense I'm used to, where I'm either depressed like crazy and happy like crazy and mad like crazy. None of me is crazy right now. And oddly enough that terrifies me.

I'm not happy, but I'm not sad. I'm not even feeling nothing. I'm ******* normal. I'm fine with where I am but at the same time I'm progressing forward, happily. Is this what it feel like to not be an alien?

My dad told me joking stories about how I was an alien dropped on the front yard when I was really young, but oddly enough he wasn't far off. I spent most of my childhood feeling incomplete, incomprehensible, like a human face hiding some sort of monster behind. I had a distinct instinct that the way I had to live through childhood was to hide, to keep secrets, to create parapets of stone around me to keep the people out, and to more importantly keep me in.

I grew up and hiding grew harder as the monster grew bigger, and I couldn't renovate fast enough for it. It eventually broke out of its stone home, and I was exposed. The alien girl was visible for all to see. It created chaos and it took a long time before I could feel human. I grew friends and a sewn together personality and threw my feelings into my writing, my work.

But today, something new happened. It was unlike any mood I had ever felt. I wasn't me anymore. Or, at least the me I had grown to know. I was exhausted but awake, and productive but not nearly as enthusiastic, and okay with who I was but willing to work towards something 'better'. I always considered better as something very subjective, but somehow today normal things seemed more... normal. Having a schedule, changing myself for the better even if I'm happy, setting random short term goals to make my life feel more... I don't know. Meaningful I guess? My life felt meaningful before but in this new body that feels so "normal" or "average", its like I'm working to be normal.

Its terrifyingly soothing. Its like the normal-ness lulls you into into thinking a normal life is ok. And not saying being normal is wrong. But I've lived a life being abnormal, being an outlier, an outsider, an oddity. This lullaby feels so wrong.

I always told I've learned to appreciate my condition because I don't think I could handle being normal, having less intense emotions, not understanding emotion so well. Its sounds stupid, it sounds like its glorifying mental conditions, but its not. I know the suicidal thoughts aren't good, and I know mania is danger. But I cannot help like feeling like I'm losing me.

I cannot even get myself to sob right now, or to even truly feel a suicidal thought. They won't stick. Not even for a minute. None of it. I;m ******* terrified but I can't feel I can't make myself feel who am I?

I can't be normal. I can't.

This is more maddening then the moods. Maybe I was hitting too close to home when I hypothesized a person from Wonderland would feel utterly insane in real life. Or worse, feel even crazier when sanity began creeping up on them.

I don't want to lose Wonderland. I don't know what to do. I don't know who I am. Who is residing in this body right now, whoever is containing my thoughts, it cannot be me.

I cannot let all of my insanity go.

Normal doesn't feel better, and **** all the people who think its the only way to go. Normal isn't an aspiration, its a cage, and I will not be imprisoned.

Al I can do is find a way back to Wonderland losing all control. I guess that's what I truly wanted. Not sanity, but control. Controlled chaos had always been a favorite of mine, after all. There is always a method to the madness, and I must find mine, because I certainly cannot live without it.

Who knew Grace would have to remember how to be crazy?

I refuse to be normal. I refuse to be in-between. I will always belong to Wonderland, to madness, and **** whoever says that's not a proper life.

Its the life for me, so frankly, I don't give a ****.

Today I fell down the rabbit hole
And I'm not coming back
All the thoughts inside my head
Were just too tightly packed

I hit the bottom and heard a Crack
Knocked loose all sanity left intact
Now I stand here looking back
And, all I can do is laugh

She crawled into a little door, her hot tears cast an ocean
Pinnafore and teacakes red as blood and torn
She's alone inside her head, in little orange bottles with gin
And he's the squiggle of lines clambering for attention
A bright cacophony of dreams and warped fixation
Sometimes chained and desolate, sometimes rambling with a grin
It's always him, and he can be quite charming
One's own mind can be a nightmare,
Madness always makes a precious friend

I'm stumbling
        Stumbling
           Tumbling
               Down a path of no return
You have lead me astray,
   Pushed me down the rabbit hole,
      With no rope to pull myself back up.
                            As I freefall I can't help but
     Let the thoughts consume my mind.
Will this dark tunnel end in Wonderland?
                                                                    Or will it leave me in Neverland?

~~Follow me down the rabbit hole he spoke,
To a place of delirium and fantasy.
Let your mind follow as your body stays.
As goosebumps creep up your skin.
Feel me when you laugh, little pinholes in your brain.
Run free with me dear Alice,  
For a trip to Wonderland.
Just rest that thin piece of paper on your tongue.
Come with me, old friend.~~