I saw it first as a reflection in your eyes. A quaint little fence, the white paint still fresh. We could smell it from where we were beside the empty street, and I don't think we'd ever smelled anything as good as that in our life. It was the smell of fresh beginnings, and as I watched sunlight sparkle on it in your sea-green eyes, I felt myself begin to relax. Tension that had accompanied me consistently since you first slipped the golden ring on my finger eased. Circulation that felt as though the band had been closing around it began to flow again, and my flesh tingled. Behind the fence was a new life, a two-story life made of brick with two windows like eyes and that mouth waiting to take us in.
Your lips curved into a smile and I saw your eyes gazing at my curiously, but I was unable to look away from your lips. They were parted just slightly, and though there was a distance between us I could feel your warm, sweet breath and I wanted to taste you again. Instead, I turned back, your fingers lightly prodding my back to encourage me to move onward.
The mouth got closer to me and then swallow me, though you were behind me so I went deeper. Here was air I had not breathed before so I inhaled deeply of it. It smelled new, too, as I crossed over floor that shone in the light of a swinging chandelier, to sit down on the couch that had beat us here. It's material felt soft against my skin and I stretched out, savoring the sensation of it. For a second, your fingers were tracing patterns on my skin, trailing fireworks and tingling sensations up and down my spine. For a second, I was pliable in your fingers, slipping over so you could lower your warmth beside me.
"It's ours," you whispered into me. I laughed in response, knotting my fingers in your hair to meet your embrace.
Behind you up against the wall I caught a glimpse of the boxes that had been piled here, balanced as precariously as a tower of cards. I feel like that now, like one wrong move and I will be collapsing again, collapsing into you. I cannot stop myself from sinking lower and lower, until I cannot distinguish your heartbeat from mine. We are one, fingers intertwined, lips dancing together.
You pull me in now, until I am sure I am in your veins, speeding as though this is the Autobahn. I see you, every fiber that makes you who you are, and I reach out to touch it, savoring unknown sensations. Breathing is hard, but I do not mind. I am Alice following the rabbit into the hole, leaving the world I knew behind for a new one.
And so we go on. Day after day, until the trees begin to bleed, and a crisp breeze sighs through a cracked door. You have kept here in a statuesque embrace, and we become one time after time until I cease to remember who I am. I am Alice, I know I am Alice. I whisper my name until my throat is numb, but time after time I lose myself again as you breathe me into the core of you.
In no time, Alice will be gone. Goodbye Alice. I felt myself slip out of that cracked door, into the golden ring in the endless blue sky, until Alice is nothing but a golden dream. This ring will cut off her circulation, until all that's left is you, sitting by yourself on the soft, floral couch, the ghost of me sitting beside you. So for one last second, I close my eyes and reach out to Alice, and I grab her for a second, kissing Alice with the same fondness you kiss me with.
I saw it first as a reflection in your eyes. Alice has left me, and Wonderland has slipped into my subconcious, where long-forgotten memories reside, never to be reborn but to always linger in some black crevice as an empty silhouette. Goodbye Alice, the dream is over...
~~beginning of rewrite [note to self...WORK ON TENSES...]:
I first saw it as a reflection in your eyes. A quaint little fence circled it, the white paint still fresh, and we’d never smelt anything like that in our life. Even from where we stood, some feet beyond it and nearly in the empty street, we could smell it; it was fresh beginnings, and that and the way the sunlight sparkled in your sea-green eyes was enough for me to relax. Tension that had accompanied me consistently since you first slipped the golden ring around my finger. Circulation that the band had been closing off began to flow again, and I shivered in excitement as I looked beyond the fence. There was a new life, a two-story life made of brick, but as I watched the windows began to transform into eyes and the door was a mouth, longing to consume me. But you smiled at me, as though to cover up the curiosity in your eyes. I turned around a little, trying to read what your eyes were telling me, but I couldn’t. I turned around hesitantly, and you pressed your palm against the small of my back, urging me forward.
The mouth got closer with each hesitant step, then swallowed me, but knowing you were behind me, I ventured deeper into that threatening maw. I crossed the floor, past the tower of boxes leaning against the wall, towards the couch dappled by the light from the swinging chandelier overhead. I stretched out, leaving room for you to slip down beside me, and I forced a smile to hide my apprehension. I traced the floral patterns, and as I did you traced similar designs along my skin and for a second, with your finger trailing fireworks across me, I almost forgot my troubles.
“It ours,” you whispered, and despite my fear and unsurety, I was laughing, looking into your eyes which seemed to be laughing too and repeating the same message you had just said.
Then I closed my eyes, and I felt like that tower of boxes, balanced precariously as a tower of cards in danger of collapsing. One wrong move, one too many breaths or whisperes and I will collapse; the foundation keeping me in place will fall away. If this goes on, I think we'll become one again, and the thought scares me. Then, I won't be able to distinguish my heartbeat from yours, won't be sure when our fingers are intertwined which are mine and which are yours, when our lips dance like to some Tchaikovsky tune where I end and you begin.
Now, I am collapsing; you pull me into you, until I am the blood in your veins, swimming through the serpentine waterways like this is the Autobahn. All my senses were heightened in that moment; every fiber of you is drowning me in clarity, your breath singing for the heavens to hear, your movements propelling me like a rocketship into those same heavens. You've tuned the radio into Tchaikovsky again, and though I don't care now, once the sweeping music ebbs into silence and I look back on it, I will care. I'll be scared again. But right then, I am Alice following the rabit down, and down, and down through the hole, leaving behind the world I know for an alien and unfamiliar one.
And so we go, on and on and on, until the trees are bleeding and they send cool, lilting whispers through the front door that we usually leave cracked. We become one time after time so that I begin to forget who I am, who I was. I am Alice now, even if I wasn't to begin with, but even that identity slips away from me. Time after time I lose myself again as you breathe me into the core of you, and each time it feels as though less and less of myself remains.
I will be gone soon. I will slip through the door and into the golden ring suspended in the endless blue sky, and all of this will be a golden dream. The ring cuts off my circulation, shrinking me, until soon only you will remain. You will sit by yourself on the soft, floral couch, and not even the ghost of me will be there.
I saw it first in your eyes, a golden ring like a leash that led me to the quaint little fence. Alice followed the rabbit through the hole, and a new world swallowed her, and it wasn't at all what everyone made it out to be. The dream is over and I am gone, and all that's left is to say goodbye.
