A Chesire cat grins at me tonight
I can only see his mouth
The rest of him is hidden in the black hemisphere
But he is kind,
He illuminates for me a glimpse of the cloud kingdom
Oh, but they look so lonely, without the birds.

In my stiff party dress
I follow Mad Hatter and Mad Hare
To a party where Mad Hatters and March Hares multiply
All so quarrelsome and confusing,
In company of the Queen of Hearts, King and queersome flat people,
As if one pair of Mad Hatter and Mad Hare
Wasn't bad enough.

When I arrive, what a fantastic sight I beheld
My cousins tell me what a giant I've become!
As I hugged them, I had to stoop, and thought;
As if I had any control over growth,
Well perhaps you shrunk - it's hardly my fault.
Then I felt rather miniature,
As I shook my uncles' and aunties' hands;
They were so big and booming with authority,
They pet my head and cooed at me,
I let them, not wanting trouble.

My, there was quite a chatter,
I easily got lost
But tediously, I managed to get out
It was as if I had drowned,
And was revived again,
By the creepy Chesire cat up high

I sat by the garden wall
How I felt tired and dull!
I longed for home
But I do not know where it is
So I wrapped a stolen coat around me
Because the Chesire cat's smile was indeed chilling
Then wondered when Ole Lukøje's brother will come
But I see Ole Lukøje's silhouette already
He takes me by the hand
And we danced into dreams.

A girl from Chesire
Who looks pretty
I can see kindness in her eyes
She's got long black hair
Lips are carved like a berry
Looks like she was an angel
Who has lost her path to heaven
I need to talk with her
But hesitant to do so
Something is stopping from inside
Had to find a way to start my step

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.

Words like knives.
Spoke like rain.
Everything he said drove me insane.

Lips like cherries.
Tongue like viper.
Everything I said, shot down, ******.

Eyes like storms.
Ears like caves.
Everything I said echoed back like waves.

Hands like hooks.
Arms like vines.
Every word he spoke, twist, entwine.

Laugh like witch.
Smile like Chesire cat.
Everything he gave, he took back.

Thinks like humans.
Soul like ice.
Every bullet was from him, don't have to think twice.

Memories like sunset.
Boy like moon.
Everything I had would be gone too soon.

"which side of the island are you on?"
the sign read clear yet confusion spawned.
a month before it said, "what mean these stones?"
i thought i had it pegged but a new riddle roots my dome.
at first glance, it's simply north, south, west or east,
until a greater insight allows you to realize the beast.
the monster within, with a mischievous grin,
the chesire cat's supreme tiger of a twin.
you see, demons and angels atop shoulders will boast,
a toast to good and evil, which lures you in the most?
perhaps this island is theoretically unsound,
heaven and hell in a melting ***, chaos surrounds.

I forgot to take my medicine.

Don't freak out, but I forgot to take my pills.

My veins are not swirling and dancing and wait actually the pills probably slow them to stop swirling and dancing so I guess now is the time for said swirling and dancing, is it not?

I can feel a bit of mania in my head, so excited and so alive and so real. I can tell because there goes periods, out the window, never to be remembered or recollected or what was I talking about?

Its twitching and hopping and like Wonderland and here we go, no ashes, just painting the roses red, painting the roses red, here comes the queen of hearts and off there goes my head, we're painting the roses red, until we end up dead.

Am I somberly manic, or maniacally somber or am i even sad? I don't know its just the twitch, I can feel it, so Chesire under my skin, the smile is coming through and my head is racing and my focus is wasting away under the hot spotlight of my own personal theater. Bravo, Grace, take a bow!

Letters and figures and math and language, so different but so funny because people speak both, why do mathematicians not count as fluent in another language, because its certainly foreign to me.

Ooh, I probably should alert the one I never expected, tell him how my head's a twitching and my fingers a fluttering and all of it a maddening. I missed this, I'd hate to admit, with the progress and the productivity and the beauty and the wonder and the land and the magic carpet ride. What land am I in again?

How funny it would be to see an intoxicated me. Am I intoxicated now? I don't know, I act like it but nothing's in my veins to even the pills am I born intoxicated, am I intoxication incarnate, am I addictive, am I a problem?

I like my sweater today, its got words that I love and words that I feel, to be or not to be, that is the question, **** it feels like I'm on fire, my limbs are burning and I am flame reborn. Maybe I should take off my hat and let out some heat, but its a pretty hat and it might feel bad if I ignore it.

Time to go back to busy life, where the life is dull and i am the fire but I love the dullness and the normativity because it involves my wonderland friends and the one I never expected. They make me happy, which lets me fly like this. The flying fire is me.

I hate to sleep.

The monsters and demons and sins and wraiths run rampant in my mind, and my control is lost. Control is key. Every impulse, every little tiny thought, leads me closer to madness. Slumber is madness creeping in upon me when I cannot steal myself from it.

Late to bed, and early to rise, leaves the insanity hidden until the day she dies.

The walking, the talking, the revealing of my truest thoughts occur when in slumber, and I hate it. That's why I don't sleep, that's why I'm last, always last, because I know that's when the crazy comes to play.

Lust, Gluttony, Vanity, Envy, Wrath, Greed, Sloth. All seven swirl in my veins, with a chesire smile concealing the truth of them. They swirl in all veins, they play their devil games in the night for everyone, but for me, its different. It always will be.

Seven little friends swimming in my head, begging me to become someone I am not. I'm not in love, but the *** is good. The mirror is a comrade in arms. The green of my eyes is for more than just genetics. The fat on my legs has a secret agenda. I feel the sickness of anger in my heart but it never shows. My selfish wiles are secret, but they are there, always screaming. And when boredom creeps, I let the angels weep.

I hate slumber, for all seven play their seductive little games inside the holes in my head, and I can never be free of it. I fear who I am when I sleep, for its not the face I know.

But with you, I slept.

That astounds me.

He is the kind of guy that makes you go crazy.
Like a glimpse through the looking glass into a strangle world
with a Chesire Cat.
You might even question if he slipped something into your drink.

If only you had that effect on someone.
You spray your perfume on his clothes so that maybe,
oh maybe
he'll think of you next time he's taking off his shirt.

But when you wake up from the hangover,
the *******,
the euphoria,
he is just a man.
And maybe,
(is it that you weren't pretty enough?)
(could you have done something differently?)
you were too good for him anyway.

Kaleidoscope raindrops fill in low eyes,
and blotter tab lunatics jump up high-
Alice is missing! Chesire's loose!
The Jabberwock is drinking a burning juice
The ceiling's melting, and the clock's been moved;
Hey White Rabbit, you're gonna get bruised.
We need order in our not-so-sober minds,
Oh, Mad Hatter! Could you be so kind?
Have you seen the Caterpillar yet?
Where is he- can you bet?
I'm willing to gamble; that's not tobacco in his pipe-
Let it be known; he's high as a kite!
Alice, oh Alice...
What have you done?

perhaps I'm just alice walking sideways & upsides downsides through this rabbit hole
not a downfall, a ****** to the core of the earth
but an upfall (make me bright, I can see colour & roses) to the dimension
where the creatures have
stainless steel hearts
nobody ever hurts
unless the queen begs to differ
when her corset is revealed to be
suffocating her wicked waist
the jabberwocky seeks vengeance & a chance to breathe fire
"off with her head," is the threat from the enemy
but an escape is in sight
a little locked door
chesire smiles' a menacing grin
a crescent moon in the black night
it doesn't matter where you go if you don't know where you're going
a cake platter with "eat me" on a card in front
home? what is that?
tweedledee & tweedledum
mad hattee, tea, dormouse
and an unbirthday anthem sung
lacking gravity or worldly law
along the dining table for the quirks
and fablesome creatures of wonderland

-cj

Listen softly, be very still,
Looking intently for a thrill.
Can you hear it, can this be?
The drum of hearts within a tree?
The hum of loves inside a box,
Behold its ever-changing locks.
These sounds are but a flutter,
Drift afloat like flies of butter.
In your stomach, there they'll stay,
Away away, these dreams at bay.
My love is all that you will hold,
And I'll keep quiet the things you told.
Wishing, thinking, hoping, breathing,
With you, all these are worth repeating.
Hold my hand, squeeze tightly now,
I'll kiss you soundly there somehow.
Hold me tight, regret release,
My sadness all the least of these.
Beating hearts and chesire smiles,
Wishing I could stay a while.
All of this and so much more,
Waiting now for what's in store.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

The voices are ringing in my ears, a thundering conundrum I have yet to figure out. He's screaming, no he's whispering, oh I can't tell anymore, from a thunder to a shiver its all the same to me I'm deaf I'm blind I see with echolocation I am a bat in its cave begging to see the light though I know it burns.

Each sentence blurs to the next a word a whisper oh there I go with whispers again did I forget a comma, some punctuation? Sorry my mind is a mile a minute when it feels such frustration in its bones that it cannot feel its toes anymore.

Wait, my brain doesn't have toes.

Nonsense. I am practically a wonderland character with all my nonsensical drivels about love and mania and speed and tears and lust and death. Give me a hat and I'm practically batty, my good sir. I will make a march with my hair and wish you a very merry un-death-day, or however that goes.

Falling down my rabbit hole, no my cave, I'm a bat, remember? I have found a way to fall sideways right into your heavy arms and you stare at me aghast, for I am not who you once thought I to be. There is a face for each hue, each color of my pigments, I'm a leaf, each season brings out a different color, well unless your coniferous but that is besides the point and very much more about needles, but I digress.

Wait, I'm a bat. What is this nonsense about leaves?

Sit down at my table and I will explain it all to you dear, how my brain is wired like a ticking time bomb, ready to set off at any moment, particularly if my pretty little pills aren't butterflying in my bloodstream, those little friends of mine simply forgetting a swim day.

Funny how one day without them can be average or it can be, well, this. Quite mad, isn't it? Tick tock, tick tock. The mouse ran up the clock, the clock struck twelve and the bat swept down and the mouse is left to rot. Tick tock, tick tock.  

Give me a cat or two and then there's a name for me, but I bet your bottom dollar every single one is a chesire, grinning, tormenting, taunting, killing. They reflect the little demons in my heart.

Have you ever been so afraid of your own reflection, or the butter knife at the end of your table, and how it might just slip into your fingers at ever the wrong moment and you might regret your next action for the rest of your life? I've only once or twice, but it was a once too many, and now I'm terrified of that little butter knife resting on the end of my table, taunting my demons, knowing how much I fear them.

Should I be a true ****** and enter a hospital? No, I will never learn honesty, all these thoughts kept up in my pretty little head will never leave my pretty little head, they enjoy their tenancy too much. Just pop the pills, Grace, darling, and everything will be ok.

A few more hours, and then I can be reunited with my dear little friends, and like the good little bat I am, recoil back into my cave, and let the butterfly angler I wiggle out be the beautiful front everyone sees. No mad hatter, no march hare, no alice, not even a bat. A pretty butterfly that everyone loves.

If only they knew what this butterfly had behind her; a cave full of wonderland.

And everyone should be afraid of that.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

anguish (as a species)
is a most fearsome animal
came to visit my abode

it is bigger than life and
at once too vibrant and too shrouded to define edges
save the glittering Chesire rictus that splits its skull
like broken mirrors
reflecting original sin as if you were the author

it characteristically blinds its victim
before inserting a single spine into the cardiac muscle
paralyzing both beat and brain

you may open your eyes once
(it will allow you that)
before the end

so you may appraise its shark-like maw
jaw dislocating wide wide wide
to afford room for your entirety

when it closes,
it is not like going to sleep.
it is no gentle light.

a worser fate, it lets you live
in the acid of its belly
peeling away your skin
pickling your eyes

until from yourself you can draw a sword
tear from the taut and distended skin of malice
and ******* forgive yourself.

she glances in mirrors
a geometric façade hems her shoulders to her ribs
the moon bleeds white in phases
crescent makes for the chesire cat smile, she sleeps to the silent sounds of it
gibbous, waning, waxing
all hallowed to the eclipsing snowy veil of it
she passes the reflection of her own skin
the light in the night shows it for her

-cj

It's like sitting on your porch on a beautiful day,
The sun bursts through the sky,
Its glorious rays caressing every inch of my skin,
Sunlight dances through my hair and across my face
Tweaks each side of mouth into a Chesire grin.

As the warmth swirls and leaps within it
Sweeps away the withering buds, the dead flowers,
And scatters hope and joy in their place.

But then the darkness sets in,
Clouds roll in thundering, screaming,
They shroud the happiness and bleed it dry,
What was blossoming gasps and shrieks to
Nothingness.

The darkness makes your front porch seem so distant,
I'm alone
In this darkness
As ice dances unruly upon my skin
And frost seizes my mind.

The sun is consumed, its golden aura
Cannot break through
The clouds are too thick, too dark,
It's gone
And all I can do
Is pray.

Dumpster diver, high school dropout,
Aquainted with the voices in his head,
Far be it the best conversations had,
Takes tea with queens, chesire.

I sail down the stream of consciousness, aimlessly, while the moon's chesire grin lights my way.Crickets serenade each other.The wind ruffles the leaves with a rythmic and harmonious beat. I find myself chuckling as those standing at the shore yell at me, "your going the wrong way." Their faces are weathered by the daily storms of petty concerns. How can they tell me the way to go when they rufuse to get wet?

The wind is howling again outside, clearing the early evening sky of clouds,
(as the curtains open...)
Exposing a drowsy eye of Crescent Moon,
A bright chesire smile on the backdrop of colbalt blue.

It's early yet for Stars, deepening to navy coal dark, a bleeding of midnight and ebony, darkness like an invisible cloak
Showing more of the heavens in the darkest of nights. And the later I stay to stargaze, upon the face so infinite her beauty--a universe enlightening in Love,
Brightening All of the Above.

The winds' howls lessen as though looking up with mine eyes wide with awe.
My very being astounded, to even have this moment to witness be--i'm dumbfounded
Overcome with such Peace.
The Love of God in me .