wonderland, i'm coming home

Alice’s porcelain-white fingers,

stark against the chestnut wood of the door,

trembled

as they touched (ever so lightly, everything she did was full of graceful caution, the result of too long spent 

falling)

the silvery doorknob

and turned it,

revealing the hallway.

–screaming, running

through these very doors–

The corridor was carpeted in crimson,

the walls cherry wood

draped with family tapestries,

moth-eaten and so dusty
the names could’ve been anyone’s.

–chasing, being chased,

a white rabbit in a waistcoat,

a tall man with a taller hat and eyes 

that were too many years older than they should be–

Alice’s knees locked in place

as her left foot

very, very slowly

slid forward.

Soon her eyes were clenched shut

and her feet

(suddenly remembering the path they had worn into the floor
so many years ago)

carried her, obediently trudging

through the thick carpeting;

looking around, were those walls surging toward Alice,

were they expanding, pushing, leaving her no room to breathe?
she had no clue – 

but judging by the tightness in her chest, they might have been.

–woman with a heart-shaped face,

yet a rock in the left side of her chest,

screaming, voice echoing

down this very hallway,

demanding blood, tears, heads,

sacrifice,

and her order is not obeyed–

Alice’s blue dress, fluttering under her now-steady hands,

has been ripped, bitten, wrinkled

by her time in Wonder,

for it wasn’t all that wonderful,

but today she finally puts it

and

herself

to rest.

–the vorpal sword (encrusted with rubies and garnets

that match its…other…decoration) swinging,

flying through the air,

no, ripping through the air, tearing through the very void

between the wonder and the real,

so close to Alice’s grand house she can smell the flowers in the front garden,

so close, so she must choose–

On the very same glass table

that once told Alice to drink, to eat, to turn the key

and discover Wonderland,

there now lies

a dagger,

its hilt strangely curved;

Alice rubs the shining metal

and discovers that the curve fits perfectly into her hand.

–girl dressed in blue with golden hair and eyes
still unchanged, un-tormented by the world around her,

leaping delicately through the terrible rip between dimensions,

shouting after herself,

promising
to return, to always return,

to fulfill the duty demanded of her–

Alice’s porcelain-white fingers

not trembling anymore,

no, they are ready now, as ready as they could ever be,

grip the perfect dagger

and thrust

                  into 

                       her 

                            chest, 

and Alice falls.

Memories of sacrifices never made,

rabbits and hares and queens never seen again,

promises kept

fade away as Alice sinks to the crimson carpeting

so cleverly colored

to hide her blood.

Her final breath is one with words.

Wonderland,

I’m coming home.