From the outside looking in, it seemed innocuous

a world within worlds, safe if not circumspect

That’s the beauty of illusion

Swirling colors hide the dirt beneath



And so I fell down that rabbit hole and devoured

each mushroom I could find, served on pristine doilies

carefully covering plates laden with filth

Tea, sugary sweet as it scalded my throat



Oh, how the players beckoned, each more mad than the next

Charmed by grand stories and traditions burned in stone

I never noticed spiders stirring silently in corners

casting sticky webs, trapping me, trapping me



Too busy consuming words and lies and misdirection

I almost noticed too late, late, too late

this place was unlike any other

meant to trap its victims in lairs, despair



Some stayed too long, any chance of escape long gone

Some dipped toes in the water and fled as its coldness

demanded payment in flesh, self-sacrifice the prize

I teetered on the edge, flirting with the point of no return



Until that day when all the colors turned monochrome

and those crazed puppets danced, each to a different tune

and those mushrooms, once savory, turned sour

and I found my way back to what is real



I welcomed the warmth of the afternoon sun

as I ran far, far away before it happened

the slow motion implosion of that world within worlds

buried beneath the weight of its own arrogance





photo: Flickr



inspiration: Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll