Borderline

Alice at 50 Writes to her Old Friend Chesire

I started to agree with the people who tell me it never happened
I think it’s easier that way
they say story
adolescent fantasy
drug-induced frenzy hallucination
your floating grin, no body, no face, just eyes and teeth
substitution for some face I’ve not allowed myself to see
years of therapy tell me you are some sort of coping mechanism
the caterpillar a metaphor for some childhood trauma
a giant smoking phallic symbol
the mad-hatter is a drunk father, a overly touchy-feely neighbor
the looking-glass some sort of body acceptance metaphor
the jabberwocky the horror in my own reflection
all different faces for something they tell me I refuse to face
They say all the drink me, eat me
should have clued me in
They don’t know
There is no metaphor here
no coping mechanism
nothing funny in my father’s tea and cake
no pedophilic neighbor
I am not in denial about anything
I was there
You know Cheshire
they never believe you
I have a daughter
Since having her I have learned
I am not mad, not crazy
They have simply forgotten how to be children
forgotten a story can exist simply for the sake of its own wonder
Her father only stayed until I told him
He took her from me when she started to tell the stories too
They tell me you are not real
that this cold grey I have known for so long is the real world
that this loneliness is of my own doing
but my child was the only thing I ever created
as beautiful as the wonderland I once knew
and she was taken from me
So tell me how is this world, better than yours?
At least there, they only ever wanted to take my head
In Wonderland, I was confused, maybe frightened at times,
but never broken
they tell me I am broken Cheshire
The white rabbit has been dead for so long now
The last time I saw him alive his watch had cracked
he was crying Cheshire
Knew he had somewhere to be
but had no sense of when he needed to be there
whether he had gone there already
He reminded me so much of my father then
they tell me he was
that I should stop hiding behind the stories
to grow up
but this adult world is so ugly
I miss your smile
I miss my friends
The rabbit hole is gone now
or lost
I only know I can’t find it
so I started digging
I buried the white rabbit in the yard
There are so many things buried here
I am falling now
I’ve been falling for so long
I know eventually I will stop
I know
I am coming
home



Wendy, 25, Writes to Pan

Dear Peter,
It was never like this with you.
Never knew I would grow to be this.
To be where thimble kisses have no place.
I now have hips and breasts,
have kissed and been kissed
and licked and sucked
and so many more things in so many places
you have never known.
I taught you things Peter.
I have never stopped teaching.
Lost boys become lost men
and I have so much more to show you now.
I now own the window you once flew into.
I own the whole damn estate.
I own my life.
That’s not to say that there haven’t been downsides.
Menstruation can be a pain.
I suspect this alone would make someone like you
never want to leave childhood,
but in truth with all your magic
you were never the strongest of us.
That was Tinkerbell.
Then there is the hoot and holler
of the men my age.
They can be aggressive when they are drunk.
But I know how to take care of myself,
being with you taught me that.
When one tried to take what would normally be given
I told him:
“Motherfucker, I’ve fought pirates with hook hands
That drunk frat boy stuff don’t mean shit to me”
and then I dropkicked him in the face.
But Peter, sexuality is a gift.
Responsibility is not as dire as you made it out to be.
Getting older can be beautiful.
You should see my parents now.
The way my mother kisses my father
softly, sweetly, every night before she goes to bed.
The way they have grown weird together,
stopped caring what everyone else thinks of them.
They are like children again.
I think you really love someone
when you can’t wait to be old with them.
I want to be old with you.
Peter life is magnificent.
Please, leave your Neverland behind.
You are missing all of this.



Dorothy Gale, 3 AM, Hollywood Boulevard

My whole life
I have only ever loved three men
I know that must seem hard to believe after all these years,
but its true
Though I have known straw men
Men whose insides I splintered
left crumbled and broken on the floor in piles
Men who I burned to cinders
and it is true
I miss them most of all
And what of tin men?
Those cold metal-suited men who watch me sing and dance
who might have rusted under my wet
my streaked make-up
I suspect not one of them ever found a heart
There have been so many cowardly lions
scared little boys hiding in men’s clothing
There have been legion
and so many types besides
and poppies to help me sleep
a whole multi-colored plethora of different horses
and drinks
I have been to all sides of the rainbow now
Auntie Em passed the spring I turned 18
I left Kansas for LA when Toto died two months later
Spent the first few months searching for traces
of my two absent parents
Lost my virginity to a 26-year-old bartender on New Year’s Eve
That was over ten years ago
I now own 13 pairs of ruby slippers
no matter how many times I click my heels
I never seem to get home
I am writing this on a bar napkin
drank too may martinis and have no yellow brick road
to lead me home to my studio in the Valley
Eventually some cowardly lion will offer me a ride home
I will wake up in an unfamiliar room in the morning
I will repeat this the next day
and the next day
I am well paid for this song and dance I do
but I am tired
I never thought I would miss Kansas as much as I do
at this moment
Never thought I would ever say those words again
but here I am chanting them like a mantra:
There’s no place like home
There’s no place like home
There’s no place like home
There’s no place like home
There’s no place like…