A new world of magic
Is unleashed after
Peeling apart the dried crinkled pages
Of the old dusty book:
A new world of magic
Where a cat
Can tell you directions,
Where the only thing judging you
Is a garden filled with tulips,
And a caterpillar
Enriches you with better advice
Than your own mother.
Created from the imagination
Of a young girl;
Alice

I used to be Alice;
Running to the creek in my backyard,
Flapping my mothers good quilt tied
Around my neck,
Pretending I could fly
Just like the birds.
I used to be Alice:
Squatting in the mud with the
Slimy, green creatures
Listening to them
Tell me where to leap off my small feet
And land
Face first in the next pile
Of brown slosh.

My Alice has long been buried now.
As years pass
I get a little taller,
A little louder,
A little more mature,
Growing up more and more
My Alice is pushed down
Deeper and Deeper within me

But sometimes
When I’m alone
She scratches her way to the surface
Her gentle voice echoing
Throughout my head
Softly reminding me not to rush
Growing up.
She takes me back down to the creek
In my backyard
She sits me in the mud
Watching the frogs extend and leap into
The smoky green water.
She tilts my head to the sky allowing me to see the birds
Weave in and out of the white puffs.

Then all at once
She is gone
Standing here
Brushing off my blue jeans,
Wondering what I am doing.

Standing alone in my world,
No longer surrounded
By talking plants and animals,
No longer shaded
By cotton candy clouds
My skin no longer kissed
By the essence of a giggling sun.

My Alice has left me alone
Standing ankle deep
In the muddy question of:
What have I become?