High School: First Place

Welcome to my Wonderland

In the medium-size city of my awareness,

Voles are building Colossi,

White rabbits run amok, screaming that they’re late,

And almost everyday you can attend my unbirthday party,

Whilst I wash stacks of dishes

in my mother’s messy kitchen

A Queen of Hearts plays croquet

With hedgehogs and flamingoes,

And playing cards paint the roses red

To avoid losing their heads

Because the queen has a fetish with the guillotine,

While I join in, singing merrily

As I lay on my uncomfortable, made

Bed

You may say I’m dreaming,

Perhaps even insane,

But I say you’ve got it wrong.

‘Tis the Red King who is snoring,

And the Mad Hatter’s the mad one.

What, you don’t see that grinning Cheshire cat?

Oh Of course you don’t.

He’s invisible,

But I like to converse with him

From time to time

As I clean my brother’s room

But that’s not all,

In the land of my wonder

I’ve renovated it a bit.

Faeries appear from time to time,

And I’ve deemed Tweedle-Dee

And Tweedle-Dum

Too annoying to keep around,

Except, of course, when I have need

For an interesting story of, mayhaps,

The carpenter and the walrus.

Then someone touches my shoulder,

Snapping me back

To the half-reality I live in

“The blue room is over there,” they say,

Tightening the straps on my bright green strait jacket

And escorting me to my padded room.

By: Alice Comstock