Alice

Words by Isabel-Sofia Pias Diaz

Artwork by Claudia Smith (@claudiart_photo)

When I think of apocalyptic environments, strangely enough I don’t wander to nuclear disasters or zombie outbreaks but Lewis Carol’s Alice and Wonderland. Wonderland has always had this purgatorial element to it; a strange gleam that catches your peripheral vision, not long enough to fully see it, but long enough to haunt your thoughts. Wonderland. That whisper that lingers in the back of your mind; the scratch lost in the back of your throat; the place that never lets you go.

From the novel to the many movie and story adaptations, it is a place that retains this gravitating pull, a place to blur the line between reality and fantasy. A place that might as well be apocalyptic in its own right.

In some ways, Wonderland’s confusing reality of continuous ironies, hazy memories and endless contradictions feels more like the lives we live today. The poem I’ve written to express this is called: Alice.

Alice

Wish I was Alice

Stumbling on sugarplum planes

Smirking felines, floating teacups

Fighting crazed candy canes

Wish I was Alice

Playing in endless mazes

Singing flowers, growing powers

Sneezing on dusty daises

Imagine being Alice

Helping rushed rabbits, learning weird habits

Finding strange places, seeing strange faces

Running aimless

Dodging glowing glasses, always skipping classes

Climbing red mountains, drinking pink fountains

Never heartless

That’s me, that’s Alice.

But Alice

Waits all alone, deeply missing home

Feeling hopeless, lying lifeless

Lost in wonderland, without a plan.

Yes Alice

Sleeps rough, nightmares for months

Mind half crazy, memory hazy

Trapped in wonderland, no helping hand

No more tricks, no more wits

Just one empty sleeve, she will never leave.

Since it’s not wonderland

without our Alice.