Wonderland – Bringing in the Pieces

There is no door to the wonderland – so I don’t have to worry.

All I have to do is make sure that the pieces I steal on any given day – are securely lodged in my secret pocket – I have to make sure that they don’t fall out – or they don’t stick too close to the rough, coarse cloth on the insides of my pocket.

You know, I can’t lose even a bit of the secret stuff I am carrying.

It’s precious – the bits of pieces I carry inside my secret pocket. They are the little bits and pieces I steal of my precious one.

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There is no door that leads to the wonderland – so I don’t have to worry – about unlatching huge wrought iron doors while still worrying about the pieces I carry in my secret pocket.

You know, I can walk right in – just like that – it’s easy.

Wonderland – is a free place – but its mine. And I can walk right into its airy, marvelous expanse, any time I want. I can walk in, when I am being all good – and, I can walk in, when I’m being all ‘me’.

I can just walk into the wonderland – and leave behind all the traces of the real world – billowing in a swirl of smoke that rises from the tops of the Blue Mountains.

I will tell more about the Blue Mountains – but not now.

Today, I stole a little bit more of him. I have been stealing bits and pieces of him for a while now. There are times when he knows – he sees – he feels that I am taking away something of him – away from him. These are the times when he is most vulnerable.

These are times when he sighs – and watches me – sometimes smiling, other times sadly – pluck little flakes, chips of him – sometimes from – his fingers – his face – his palms – his feet – his hair – there are some other times – when I try to stick my fingers, deep inside of him – making him uncomfortable, making him squirm – those are the times when I try to steal little beige flakes from his mind.

And, those are the times when he gets resentful.

In such times, when I hurriedly try to plunge my fingers – deep into the tunnel of his thoughts – a looming womb of surreal beam of darkness – lighted around the corners by the lights that filter across in to the real from his unreal – he groans – he stifles and he tries to prise my fingers away. He sometimes looks at me pleadingly – to not scrape at the edges of his mind – there are secret rooms there – musty with the thick smell of memories that have settled down – in an uncomfortable calm – in the recesses – of the dark corners of them rooms – sealed tight shut for long passages of time.

Then, there are the other times – when he sits there, just sulking – getting more resentful by the minute – as I lovingly, albeit urgently – fumble at anything – a nebula of thoughts there – inside the tunnel – of his mind. Such times – I try to grasp, in the darkness – lunge and hold on tight to the diaphanous beams of light – it’s eerily silent and dark in there – not – there is a cacophony of voices – and there is a burst of golden light – streaming in from the unreal – but I get so confused. And he gets more restless by the minute.

Such times – when he lets me fumble – plunge my fingers – into the tunnel – I can sense the tremors coming – the ripples – that pop dangerously on the outside calm of him – it looks detached, you know – the outside calm – but I have sensed the rumbling, the echo of intense red licking lava roaring – as it snakes its way through – meandering and whistling – down the slopes that lie beyond the tunnel – but all beneath the surface – of the outside calm.

And I back off.

The tunnel scares me – fascinates me – pulls me – and attracts me – all, at the same time.

I love the tunnel – and all the secrets that lie inside it.

My finger tips – are burnt – with all the forceful jabbing – the red roaring licking lava remains on my finger tips scorching - and I sit licking at them – quick thrusts inside my mouth – and a swab of cool saliva – and the embers die down – but a deep yellow stain – a weird shade of yellow – and red – remains.

Also, there are those angry times – hurting times – when he asks me to stay away from his mind – he knows that I am stealing – pieces of him - and he’s already resenting that – but he knows that he is powerless – he cant stop me from stealing which he thinks is his own – but he cant be more wrong – but I cant explain that to him – the right words, they never come to me.

Such times – he is very angry – and the red roaring licking lava simmers under the outside calm – but, when he stands out in the sunlight of my thoughts – I can see the lava beneath growl angrily at me – its red – spread like an itch all across his face – and I know its not the right thing to do to plunge my fingers into his eerie tunnel – that day.

But did I tell you I am diseased? I have a diseased mind – because even when I see the danger signs – red and itching on his face – I ignore his warnings – coming in strong beams of molten anger at me – silent rage like – and I still lunge – plunge and jump into his tunnel.

I am decadent – I can-not not do what I am stopped from doing – I am lustful – because I can-not not lust that which hits at me with the force of jubilant lighted beams of meteors – dancing, raving mad – send forth from the galaxies aboard the sea of fantasy – not swimming languidly – but passionately thrusting the oars of their lightening – into the sea of a torrid mind – swirling gases of erotic amnesia – strangely remembering all the old smells.

But, he’s no mean foe – when he wants to be.

Such times – when I invade his wrestling mind – turbulent and toxic - he lunges back at me – and he breaks my jump – holds my hand by the wrist and twists it around, hard – and I wince in pain. Then he pushes at me hard – and I fall back – sometimes I go crashing into the ground – and I look at him stupedified. And hurt.

He then quickly turns around – he doesn’t just stand there – nor waits, for my hurt to contaminate his anger – pure and bristling – he stares at me hard and cold and dead – knocking me down – a little more –

‘You don’t own me,’ he says – ‘Don’t act like you do.’

And he walks out of the door – leaving me there – just like that – staring at him – still stupedified.

I have never told him – but such times – I feel more pain – intense, wracking and soul searing – much more than I feel when my finger tips get singed and burnt - by the red roaring licking lava bellowing inside the tunnel of his mind.

I don’t think he will ever understand – he just can’t. 

You know, I forgot to tell you – he doesn’t understand me.

Also, such are the times when my mind – nauseous – struck dumbstruck by the fall – the rotation and the gravity – crawls into a limbo of blinding pain – and there, I meet my deity of concord – his beautiful innate cruelties.

Split – like little atoms of a huge whole – they whirr and jostle noiselessly in the limbo – my intense affections and piercing lust, now accosted with grievous pain – they need a match of transcendental proportions. I understand the balance through the haze of nausea – but I don’t want to embrace it yet.

They dance – like fireflies – zooming in the darkened limbo – rays of shooting light – and they remind me of something I have so well known – seen and touched – in my wonderland. Their nearness – brings me strange comfort – even when they sting at slight touch – but I know – I would not be happy until his cruelties – innate and raw and native – sprouting like fresh seeds from a sodden ground – they wrap their arms – blinding burning – around my pitiful pangs of lust and affection – gnawing vulnerable pain.

I know then – he is cruel – very – but his cruelties are benign – and even selfish. They form a blighting ring of fire – hot – very hot – around my fancy – they nurture the affection and the lust – and helps them grow – beyond proportions that he can ever understand – or explain – to me – still befuddled with the shock of being abandoned – and still lusting – marveling – and embracing - his innate, beautiful cruelties.

And I thrive in the pitiful loss of a setting day – or – I just straighten up and start walking – until my feet whisper to me, in shallow silence – we’re walking – wonderland – now.

He is cruel – but he is real – when I fix up stolen pieces of him – and try to breathe life into him – sitting by the frothing river – by the marshes – in the wonderland – I see him coming alive – bit by bit – resentful – and angry – but I see what he doesn’t see – and he wont want me to tell him what I see.

I see him come to life.

I run my hand across his face – I still need more pieces to feel the touch – more real – I need him – to live off the bounties of the wonderland – stay close to the earth and the marshes – walk bare feet on mossy ground – strokes of green and red – and orange around us – Blue Mountains, smoky – with strokes of occasional chalky white – and the rolling expanse of beryl – with mustangs running wild – smell of rain abundant in the air – and wild vapors from the earth – wrestling with its own heat – and the cold of the scented mountain wind – winking round sun – and black berries – and a small warm fire – his stories – in my wonderland.

I touch his face – I smoothen the angry creases – and I feel a certain anxiousness fill up my senses – I want to run back to him – to steal more – I want to fill him here – more.

But I stall – still smarting from the fall – still a little nauseous – I continue to run my fingers across his forehead – until I stare into his eyes. Maybe – I don’t need to steal anymore of his eyes – they’re full and glowing – shining – watching – half amused – little angry.

I know with a certain clarity – I don’t need anymore of eyes here – and then I remember what he told me last when I met him – ‘I’m blind here’ – he told me already – no, I don’t need anymore of his eyes.

With such knowledge – I grow more restless – because now I know I have something in full. I abandon the rest of him – and I cradle his eyes – cup the sides of his temples between my palms – there is touch – in the wonderland – this is real.  I have to look deep and strong – I am tired now – and I do – look – and I am surprised at what I see.

I don’t see the flashes of his needs and his insecurities – I look deeper – I don’t even see his outsides strip. I don’t see the wilting colors – come alive – when his eyes stare too hard – I even wade past the sadness – I might come back there later – I go deeper – still searching – until I find what I seek – right there in his eyes – staring back at me – luminescent – fireflies – wrestling with his cruelties – wrapped around them like they wont leave – I see then swimming in his eyes – my burning lust for him.

A yellow moon – spotted and blotchy – huge round yellow – wakes up unto the night – and swims across the wonderland sky – clouds – foam and dew – lightly illuminate the narrow trail that leads to the grove of bamboo – we don’t have a house here – no bricks and mortar – there is just the comfort of green and brown.

I know he’s tired. He wants to be – and his eyes now stare at me sleepily – I close my own eyes – I don’t want my lust to tire him more – I tell him – ‘be’ – he wants to know – ‘how’.

I tell him – and he tells me – that’s how I sleep.

I laugh at all the wrong times – this sounds most funny to me – I think – ‘Maybe when he sleeps – he’s be-ing – most natural and native – close to his earth and sludge – maybe if I watch them – as I stay up – nestled somewhere close to him – maybe – then I don’t need to go outside anymore – I will steal more of him – from him – here – right inside the wonderland – while he’s asleep – and be-ing – and breathe more of him into life.’

Darkness – I love – but I fear – so I let him lead me upwards – from the basin – onto higher grounds – he doesn’t hold my hand – he walks too fast – his focus disturbs me. But I let him lead – I don’t want to be lost – I want the comfort of the grove now – majestic bamboo – sharp and graceful – sticking out into the night sky – waving at the yellow moon – I let him lead us to our grove.

Its silent – but wonderland is peace – smells from the valley of blooms wafts in the dew thick air – he stalls – a moment – and I look up at him questioningly – but he doesn’t notice.

I see him breathe in deeply.

I know then – it’s sacred to him – the scents – and I steal this knowledge – before he knows – and quickly stuff in into my pocket – careful to not let it fall out – its dark – I’m careful.

I let him be – with the smells.

He then begins to walk again.

‘Can we talk?’ I ask him – careful to not disturb his peace.

‘No – not now – we talk tomorrow,’ he tells me and begins to walk more quickly.

I’m not agitated – even when refused – I am just so happy being with him. We can always talk tomorrow – even if not – then wonderland is filled with lovely sounds of crickets and bees – melodies and hymns and old songs.

‘Will you tell me a story – tomorrow,’ I ask him quickly – obviously, I can-not not talk if he asks me not to.

‘Yes – let’s move faster,’ he retorts impatiently.

I begin running after him – I’m getting breathless.

He suddenly stops – and looks at me – and this time I see something I never quite get to see – it’s blinding actually.

His eyes light up with streaks of pure kindness – as he looks down at me – says, ‘I’ll walk a little slowly – don’t run.’

I stand there dazzled – as he watches my fascination – until – the impatience creeps back in and he waves the fireflies out of his face – and whispers, ‘Now – can we begin walking again?’

I nod my head in silent reverence – I marvel at whoever he is – I know – but don’t know – I force the questions out of my mind – I know I just want to be with him right now.

And once again, we begin walking - without talking.

The sight of the grove fills up my senses – lifts my spirits as I break into hysterical giggles.

It feels good to be home – even in wonderland.

You see – this is where we live – him, whatever little of him I have built in here – with stolen bits and pieces – and me – the whole of me – the wonderland belongs to me.

‘What’s so funny?’ he asks me - cross – trying to part the biting bamboo and make little way for us to pass.

‘You,’ I tell him and giggle more – I’m a little mad – maybe more.

He shakes his head – disgusted – not – and tries hard not to smile – he likes being home too – but not unless someone is waiting up for him – then, he doesn’t like to come back home until late.

But I wait up for him here – night after night – and he mostly comes in time – not – but then he isn’t used to – might get used to, too.

We find out nice spot – its warm and nice – a little corner in the shadiest part of the grove. There is that scent of wild vapors again – as he reclines – and rolls in the earth – like its satin under him – I stand and watch him.

‘Now I sleep,’ he tells me – his face buried in the earth – and he starts taking deep full breaths again.

I can see the vapors course down his chest – fill it up – as his lids grow heavy.

‘Not yet!’ I tell him and start walking around – restless.

‘Okay.’ He says and turns around on his back – reclining on his elbows – and says – ‘What do we do now?’

I’m surprised – I only wanted him to fight back – but he agreed – speechless – I don’t know what to say.

‘We sleep,’ I mumble.

He laughs.

‘But not yet – you said.’

‘I don’t know!’ I wail and fall on the ground – old habits – from another world returning. My feet rise in the air – on their own – as I lie there on my stomach – the wild vapors creeping into my nostrils – as I don’t even notice – and legs flail hanging mid air.

‘I dunno anything! I’m so DUMB’ I wail again.

‘Oh you do,’ he says – and he creeps close to me, ‘this is wonderland – and you’re smart here – don’t you see how you steal with stealth – and think that I don’t know?’

I lie there still – at the sound of his voice – not knowing what to say – HE KNOWS!

‘You know?’ I whisper – scared – no, petrified.

‘Of course, I do,’ he says and pulls me close to him – and I spoon against him – now legs not flailing.

There is peace in truth – and in knowing that he knows.

Strange comfort

I lie there – for a while – as his breath – filled with wild vapors breezes lightly across my neck – sedating me – not – as I twist and turn around – as the kicks in my belly have returned with full abandon – screaming and knocking me up with the sheer intensity of their force – their story, thought waits for another day – this is wonderland – here every story is sacred – demands its own due.

His hand gently snakes across under my arm – pulling me yet closer - as he pats my stomach – ‘Rest’ – he tells me – and rests himself – be-ing.

The kicks don’t go – but I lie more still – strange comfort it washes all over me.

I sleep by his side – and I know peace – with him in wonderland – in a bamboo grove.