The Cat and Alice by Nadezhda Grigorova

Italic – Alice thinking/talking
Bold italic – Cheshire



Insomnia – the ghost in my maze of grey matter. The bells exorcize it. They playfully jingle
The Cat has arrived. His stripes drip with Color. Me? My reflection? With whom will he mingle?

His will kiss Me.
Not the looking glass.

His whiskers will tickle my lip,
His fangs my Sanity will rip,
His mouth my Madness will sip

With a straw…

“We are all mad here.”

“Give me a color. Yours.” I asked

My eyelid is weary. He lifts it revealing an iris that’s ashen and sightless for sin
He sneers – “Ugh! So average!” – and taints me with Color, marks me with his half-mooned grin

In my lap he snuggles, his grip tantalizing. Hypocrisy. Mockery. Tenderness fake 
AH! Down he pins me, subduing me under. Suddenly. Roughly. The Predator wakes.

Down the hole…

I’m thrashing about with this harrowing longing his soaring heart mine to make and to seize.
Oh, why does Normality keep me in prison, turn a deaf ear to my plea for release?

Under his caress I scream and desire, yet I remain in the stalemate of death
Under his claws I am  brought back to life, under his cruelty - given a breath

“Normality…You are defiling my Alice!”

Slowly, with venom, he’s goring my eyes out, summoning Wilderness, Chaos – the Beast
I….Disintegrate. Fractured. And Scattered.  An “Only”. A “Nothing”. A psychopath’s feast.


“Finally, you are back, my true Alice…my complete Alice”

“Epiphany…!!”

Nirvana! He sews me up. Zealous. Possessive. I’m Free! I am elated. I reach the Divine!
My REAL EYE opens. Beyond I am gazing. Thank you, oh feline demon of mine.

In my eyelashes the scarlet has curdled. He licks it away with obsessive devotion.
Through his saliva a skeleton flashes. Secrets illicit, arcane, in no motion.

So this is It. This is the ploy scintillating that Life hides beneath Its prosaic, parched skin
Sweaty from ludicrous running  in circles in the – read label – “Normality” tin

“Don’t drink it…It’s worse than poison….”

“From the tin,  Cat, you fished me! “She purred. Lunar smile. “Devour the me who is yours, your sardine!”
Her stripes and her tail with his were entwined. Ravenous, filthy, they shunned the Pristine.