Another Alice
by Devon Koren - 1994 

There was nowhere else to go as I
Watched the setting sun
Cast my shadow across the open field
I contemplated my fate 
Standing there like a silhouette
In some dirty porno magazine
Trying to differentiate
Between illusion and reality
Trying to draw a thin chalk line
Between love and pain
And I raced across the pathway
Feeling the overlapping sigh
Of the two otherworlds
Within those perilous steel eyes
And yet to suck me into the perpetual vacuum of your darkened soul
I cast my hands into the fire of the dying sun
As I watch the Lion fight his friend
The Unicorn for the golden crown
And Tweedledee and Tweedledum
Will battle as well when the day is done
But I'm tired of fighting 
Of casting my heart into your open flame
And I've said enough already
Without really saying anything at all
But the Mad Hatter has invited me for tea
To exchange the riddles we learned a week before last
Thursday
And the Knight must have a new invention
To put on display
Oh, Dina, remember when things were still simple
And they all would run at the sound of your name?
To think that all this nonsense started with the thought of
A chain of daisies
The crown I must fashion for the victor of the battle
And as the Mock Turtle I cry bitter tears of bitter sorrow
For a bitter reason that I can't quite remember
For it's been so long since I followed the Rabbit
All in a golden afternoon
The Jabberwock is coming through the broken looking glass
Shattered memories of fragments
Something about a game of chess
Pieces to a grater puzzle
Yet we lost the full picture only a few lifetimes ago
In the end it makes no difference 
And all I ever wanted was for someone to understand
Who I am
3 inches high is quite a good height for some people
But all caterpillars must turn into butterflies
Some summer sunny day
The roses they reprimand me for vanity
Yet what have they to say in the matter at least?
One side makes you tall
The other small
But I just want to be somewhere in between 
And burn like that bright star she told me I was
Hell, I'll go out in supernova
In a brilliant display of flickering light 
So another Alice in another lifetime
Might see the light that I shed now
Some millenniums later
   
(This poem was published in the first issue of the independent zine Sidhe. It also was included in my 
application to Governor's School, and may well be one of the reasons I was accepted.)