My mind wants to sleep,
But my body stays awake.
I'm starting to wonder
If my body's a *******
Because all it does is ache

Starry when the night began, we ran ran ran
along running water young enough to have no trace of age.
Alice strung out floating like the prettiest diamond
imaginable.

Kindly petting cheek then struck like a thunderous match,
her face glowed a sinking white-- a face made of candles
lit beneath plaque eye sockets, wildly staring blackness,
lips built on an unfamiliar shade of red,
Flaxen hair that sliced along gemstone irises;

I love love love you. Please, stay a while longer, long
enough to feel like forever-- although I know such is impossible--
Look at those seagulls feeding rain to the distant waves,
Wings soon to be scrambling overhead, let me read you a book
about a girl whom you were probably named after.

I will sing a lullaby and hold hold hold you in it for
as long as I can.

We board on the lazy sea crawler,
us cowards, in tea and cream and glory.
Martha, hands in her hair, in her sweet age;
We lurch, cold, remaining in sweeter earth,
And I into Sam's cloud of august.
We are hearts only bent on fame,
While the ashes of our cousins —
A new lineage in lieu of dirt —
Begs us in their choral aching for a keening.

Alice on the left
Protecting scars from the past
On a mushroom patch
Of black lines sure to last

The Rabbit to her right
Memories of temptation before
Addictions and highs
Never touch it again she swore

Joined together they tell a story
To others, it looks pretty
But when she looks down
She sees more of a plea

When I woke up this morning
I felt my skin crawl and body ache
And my entire being was sitting at the edge of a knife
And I could feel the backs of my knees being gently sliced into as I swung my legs

When I woke up this morning
I felt my mind reeling back and forth like a wind-up car
Forehead and heart alike pounding as I sat up
My ankles clicked and my jaw popped open
To reveal damaged clockwork within
And I was stuck at exactly 6:37 am

When I woke up this morning
Something felt off
My hands felt as though they were placed three inches away from where they are on my wrists,
My ears rung with noises I barely remembered
And my eyes stung with just the light from my dim screen,
and burned when I flicked the switch

When I woke up this morning
My nerves were on fire
And I was reduced to a pile of tear-stained ashes
Because why should I cry if I knew what was wrong?
Questions racing about my mind
Dulled by choked on routines electrifying my nervous system
necessary to keep me from going down the rabbit hole

I'm tired of wearing Alice’s armor
And the caterpillar’s smoke is making my lungs seize up and throat swell
I refuse to accept the fact that I am steadily losing control
But I will scream, cry, and break that I am nothing short of terrified.

When I woke up this morning
I told myself that I will be fine
And I ignored all the warning signs
And I fell

Fell

F e l l.

Blood
In the ashes
Smeared
On white roses
"Paint them red,"
She said
"Or it's off with your head"
The Queen of Roses
Lying her her rose bed
Dripping blood
From a severed head
Slowly painting
The roses red

how do you gaze at the rabbit hole in your chest without falling down into it?

Alice had forgotten what happiness felt like. It’s been long since hers plummeted to rabbit holes with non-existent Wonderlands — hers plummeted to rabbit holes, from which it was never again able to climb back from.

my way to say,
present, in Wonderland.

present in your life when least expected,
no qualifying reassurance reason,
and best!
dessert-deserved more than the rest of the days

prefer to have a postman ring twice,
imagining the look on your confused face,
the genuine life velocity wholeheartedly surprised,
the tickling happiest angst of wondering why...

the present of presence is selfish, me-gleeful,
good for the soul, and the surprise message,
for my presence is all the greater by my absence,
well, it tickles that warm spot you almost forgot about
that no rowed columnar calendar manager can pretend provide

that’s what is all about...
(and stop grinning already)
the unexpected, the ******* jack wondering,
the whys grows lesser,  
the message très simple:
the no reason season of surprise,
starts with a daily sunrise..  

C'est la vie au pays des merveilles


postscript
————-
(Holiday and Birthday wishes/presents are now de rigeur, obligatory,
forgetting unacceptable, even as a date’s meaning grow less significant,
now that we’re on Facebook to be advised by AI that controls it & destroys simultaneously,
the reduction of the remembering quality of life)