[and i am alice]

opening,
shutting cabinets in a flooded kitchen,
searching
for a glass to fill,
and the floor is sandpaper
against my aching skin
sliding, back scraping down the
wallpapered days
as smiles pour in through the window
and tears slip the floor
i am slipping,
sliding,
in this cavernous kitchen,
as Alice,
down the rabbithole
towards painless death.

drink me, said the little flask,
sparkling in shards of light;
eat me, said the morsel cake,
rich in flavour and design

and i am Alice,
sliding around in my own defeat
slipping
towards the end of this rabbithole;
the light fades and returns and i
am fading with it
my hope and smile desert me,
painstakingly slow,
with the cheshire cat
grinning so devilishly at my
predicament;
and i approach the bottom,
certain death,
but here
in the darkness
there is a door.