"Chut open now or I'm ringing the bell"
I ping you, curse and run. With you I never know which way is up so I'm not testing. You're standing outside grinning like a Mad Hatter and I skip a beat, surprised as always to see you in all the places that I own. Partly because you somehow upset my rhythm and partly because what I'm about to do is indefinitely idiotic. I grab your hand and pull you into my room, fast, away from my dads door. Ultimate ninja. When I breathe out we're already playing. I tiptoe to kiss you and you laugh because you're in power. Its your dimension and I'm just a housecat. Housecat to wildcat is an inevitable transition. I grab your collar and you pick me up and we fight in sync, till I'm flushed and you've got me pinned down, moving in like a predator. I kick and scratch and bite and your hands beat the bass into me. You're in control. I'm okay with that. You're blazed as fuck and more dangerous so when I taste you I breathe you in. We don't exchange pleasantries. This is an art form and if someone caves, they're not worth the fight. I pull your hair and mould myself to you, resisting is a prerequisite but I like it when you lead.
You've got me up against a wall when my dad knocks, we still have our clothes on and you don't leave a battle halfway through. Still, its the Jabberwocky. Bigger battles, bigger fish to fry. Cockblock, I think, push you into my bathroom and open the door. He looks at me suspiciously, "Something's fishy," he says. Fishy is a strange word so I laugh. But I'm also standing protectively next to my very conspicuous purple bathroom door so neither is a good move. "You're hiding something." "Leave me alone," Ah typical typical, you'd think. But my dad's no White Rabbit, he's a Jabberwocky and like all the best ones he demands to go into my bathroom. I'm this close to losing a life when I think, fuck it, this is not how its going to end. I yell out random words like Trust and Issues and Assumptions and capitalize them for good measure. Attack is the best form of defense.
The Jabberwocky retreats but commands me to leave the door open. I find you flipping out, desperate to smoke, lighting things in my bathroom. I half seriously ask you to jump out of my window but the look you give me says "this is unacceptable". This is making you human.
The Jabberwocky sends reinforcements in the form of my brother and his friend. Aww yeaaah. Looks like Tweedledum and Tweedledee are playing for Alice.
"There's a boy in my bathroom," I say dramatically and instantly they're on a mission. Challenge accepted. 5 seconds later and we're in motion. Tweedledum and Tweedledee distract the Jabberwocky and the Mad Hatter and Alice ("Can you hold your shoes in your hand?" "No") sprint out the door, down the rabbit hole. I'm laughing but then I catch your eye and instantly promise you anything you want. Alice always found her way to somewhere, even spiraling. But you're mad.
We go higher until its just you and me and a vast expanse of sky. The moon mocks our madness and the stars provoke our God complex. You make a molehill out of my mountain. We're both egotistic and neither of us want to get dirty but the truth is with skin you win, so I get to be on top. Its a mess. We trade debauchery for comfort and settle back into a tradition that has transcended time and space. I crush, you roll.
[Take some more tea," the White Rabbit said to Alice, very earnestly.
"I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more."
"You mean you can't take less," said the Hatter: "it's very easy to take more than nothing."
"Nobody asked your opinion," said Alice.”]
Your words are easy but your ideas alien and I feel like I took the pill that makes you very very small and you took the pill that makes you very very tall. My reality is diminutive and yours is the universe. I envy the ease with which your language is unspoken before you and mine is everything I have ever heard. Our Wonderlands aren't in sync because mine is this world. Our reciprocity of perspectives means I see you like you see me. Your claims are limitless and with that comes the backslap of being heartless. You don't share common ground.
"Do you ever feel like an animal?"
"No."
"Not even like..a snow leopard or a panther?"
"I admire them but I am not them, they are who they are."
Sometimes, I fight the urge to slap you.
["Would you like some wine?" the Hatter asked, hunched over his teacup
"Yes..." Said Alice
"We haven't any and you're too young."]
Slap.
"Come see my world," you say and we watch over a city consumed by pretty lights and dark desires. "Sometimes, you have to switch roles, if everyones acting, who's watching? Step back, observe."
["There is a place, like no place on earth. A land full of wonder, mystery, and danger. Some say, to survive it, you need to be as mad as a hatter. Which, luckily, I am."]
When you leave I look at you seriously and say, "My heart is the bass to my body."
You laugh. "I know the song."
[It's always teatime somewhere.]
