Wonderland

[heslopian]

A boy obsessed with Wonderland,
chasing rabbits down dark holes,
cats with upside down faces
and animated playing cards
(how do they digest food?
I wondered. Are their organs paper thin,
transparent to the naked eye?),
I passed lonesome hours,
while my father was at work,
and my mother searched herself
inside a mental hospital,
dredging her own surreal landscape
for memories she'd later deny knowledge of
(when I locked the bathroom door,
a nanny in a horror film,
while Michael Meyers screamed
with a young woman's voice)
seated at my grandma's dining table,
re-reading Carroll's strange story.
She always wore a big blue blouse
and white apron,
as was tradition, and I boiled with rage
when a new film was made,
showing her in (GASP!)
YELLOW.
Children desire stasis.

Perfectly consistent in
its inconsistency,
Wonderland existed
outside time and space,
outside school bullies
and insane mummies,
between the pages
of a "Penguin classic".