Cheshire Cat: A Slow Unravelling

I contemplate as I watch my tail turn to mist

...lovely mist…

...mist..

Missed.

Gone is my chance

gone like the wind...

like a breath...

like... my mind…

Mind!  I do, mind.  I happen to mind very much, thank you!

I mind that the girl is clueless

That she is scared

That she’s so... insatiably sweet

Sweet, like candy.  I think I loved candy, once.

Chocolates that melt on your tongue like dew melts on spring grass

Cotton that tastes like the clouds of sunrise

A boat made entirely of licorice…

Or is that someone else’s story?  Dear me, I’m scattered

Scattered like the leaves in an autumn breeze

Scattered like dandelion fluff as a child blows and wishes

Scattered like her hair in the gusts of Wonderland’s winds

Her hair!  How flaxen, how golden.  Like sunlight

Like fine gold thread

Like the edges of glory

Like innocence incarnate….

I was innocent, once.  

But with its ever-winding paths, hatters and March hares, Red Queens, and topsy-turvy rabbit holes, Wonderland--yes, Wonderland! has a way of changing people...twisting and contorting bodies and thoughts and minds until, quite suddenly, without any warning, and all at once--

You’re mad

As a hatter

As the Queen

As am I

Poor thing.  Should she never find her way, her mind, too, will slowly and irrevocably sink...

Sink like a ship with a few too many holes

Sink like a very bad feeling in someone’s gut

Sink.

Into madness

That all-encompassing fold

Of the ease of letting go

Of the unravelling of the mind...

Mind!  I do, mind.  I mind very much, thank you!  I’d help her, if I could...

But she is gone.

Gone like the wind…

like a breath…

Like the cat I once was...

Out of reach, out of time, out of luck, missed.

Missed…

Mist…

Isn’t it curious how my tail becomes mist?

Curiouser and curiouser.