Monday, September 28, 2009

Be ye therefore perfect

Dear Alice,

While tumbling down the rabbit hole, at what point did you realize you were falling? Were you always aware of the gravity that pulled you, or did it simply feel as though the ground had moved, er, lower? Having fallen, did you feel fallen?

How did you maintain your poise in Wonderland, and then again through the Looking Glass? What sort of an ethics can obtain when nothing is certain, or even appears to conform to expectations? If to advance, you must retreat, and, in retreating, find you have advanced, can you really plot your movement? Does every backwards-running take you forwards?

How is it that, confronted by non-sense everywhere you went, your answers remained so reasonable? How did you keep yourself from wantonly embracing the non sequitur?

Alice, do you ever feel yourself to be at fault for having succumbed to the pull of the rabbit hole? Perhaps you are simply the kind of person who is susceptible to finding such things, to falling in such ways? Perhaps your broad and active curiosity, your desire for expanded wonder are to be condemned: through them you are disposed to be drawn to ungovernable places. Do you never worry that perhaps you will find difficulties in becoming wife or mother thereby?

Having been to Wonderland and through the Looking Glass, what comes after? Is your life forever different? Can you return to your family and be happy? Can you even be content? Knowing there are other worlds, can you be satisfied with only one?

Alice, in whom can you confide? Alice, where is your home? Alice, whence are you drawn? Alice, whose voice calls you? Alice, does anybody even know your name?

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Break, heart, I prithee break heart and bleed

(conflated texts)

spiraling in an outward -
i think i've been here before;
this all looks too familiar and
i've heard this one too many times

[why is the measure of love loss?]

i think i have been here before
and i think i know you
i've heard this one too many times:
no, it's not you, it's me.

["why is it that the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear?"]

i think i do know you -
you're the one with the teeth...
no, it's not you, it's me;
no, of course, strangers.

[oh! I love you, well, because! Because you're the very best! Of everything!]

you're the one with the ... teeth?!?
oh! the stories i have to share!
of course, i share them with strangers,
breaking silences, hearts.

[counting your teeth with my tongue, I repeat: you are]

oh, the stories i have to share;
repeating my life for strangers,
breaking promises, hearts,
telling myself again, and again.

[a love story: I love you]

repeating my life for strangers,
this looks all too familiar
telling myself again and again. again
spiraling in an outward -