I.
I followed the White Rabbit into a land of wonder…what is love if not a dream or an illusion? It is a world all its own, it’s a world I no longer know. I fell into it, certainly, but you can’t fall out of what you fell into. It was a long climb up, and though I wish to go back, there’s a wall behind me and a vast Wasteland before me. Wonderland never existed? Surely love cannot end that quickly…surely the rabbit hole can be found and tumbled down again.
I followed the White Rabbit into a borrowed story book and stumbled away worse for the wear. Why did he run from me? What color was his waistcoat? What time did his watch read? I have forgotten the details of him, but I remember when I remembered, and I want nothing more than to remember again.
II.
When the tea cup was half empty, in those days I would move down the table to a full cup again. Dissatisfaction suited me, even rewarded me, and when the love seemed to be running out, it was immediately replaced by more. “I like what I get” was quite exactly the same as “I get what I like”. I meant what I said at that table of riddles, and I said what I meant, and those were the same, and we were the same, and we didn’t need anything but to be the same.
This is how I remember love being, but I have forgotten what it feels like, and my cup is empty.
III.
It was no business of ours, yet we readily played croquet with the Queen of Hearts, and suffered for it later. Our smiles were disgustingly huge, and how were we to know that to trust the Heart was to lose our heads?
I giddily went to my execution grounds, you know, thinking nothing of sacrificing logic to stay in love.
Madly in love, yes, and crazy for love, we described ourselves as such so often, but did I realize that when I checked into that game, I relinquished my sanity? The game is over, the Queen chased me away, but my sanity has not yet returned. The cost of being in love, you know, is never knowing the real truth again.
IV.
I bring before the court my evidence. I didn’t steal the tarts, your majesties. I didn’t steal his heart, your majesties. He gave it to me. But I lost it.
“A lifetime of servitude to replace this heart,” the judge said, and his gavel came down three times on the stand.
Servitude?
Yes, of course.
Servitude to madness…
V.
We’re all mad here, you know.
Without madness, there is no love.
It’s maddening to know that your happiest madness is an unreachable spot on the timeline called “The Past.” It’s as if being a part of someone and having them be a part of you is merely a dream you’ve woken from, or a fairytale you once heard. You can hold your ground and say, It was real! We were just in love last week! But last week turns to last month and last month to last year, and then you begin to question your own memory…Did I really love him? Did he really love me? Did I ever know him? Does he even exist?
We’re all mad here.
I never stopped being mad for Wonderland. I never stopped being mad for that love. But it is too far behind me now. I can only make out its colors. The details of it disappear into the other details of it, its edges blurring slowly into the sky.
VI.
Here I am, walking through fields of flowers. I see beauty where I once knew that it would speak to me. It just isn’t the same thing.
In this place, the daisies look at me with withering exhaustion, uncaring and cold, as if to say, What do you expect us to say?
VII.
I settle for memories when I have the heart to settle, and I recall that Tweedledum and Tweedledee told us cautionary tales. I remember that our curiosity was expected in those days, yet they told us to ward it away. Curiosity, they said, will devour you. They warned us of age, too, but we never feared it.
Am I to lie to myself and say we never made a mistake? I never made so many mistakes as I did with you. I never hurt someone so many times. It wasn’t all beauty. It wasn’t all good. But it was Wonderful.
I go back to Tweedledum and Tweedledee, now they click their tongues at my stubborn inquisitiveness. Suddenly I am wondering but never knowing, asking questions without real answers. Will I ever love again; will I ever know him again? The answer is a resounding NO, but I cover my ears to it and wish for new answers to the same old questions.
VIII.
I don’t know the truth about anything anymore, you know.
I can’t get back to Wonderland.
I miss it.
I miss you.
I love what I remember you to be.
I hate your shadow, still cast over my habits and words and thoughts.
I don’t know what is real.
I see only myself through the looking glass now, and I am terrified.
