I know you— little girl walking through the red poppy field,
Air smelling like dirt, breath smelling sour, little girl
Who stared too long into the looking glass, dissolved
Into a pile of tender milk-teeth and soul
And nothing more.
When you went to sleep, a slender hand with nimble fingers,
Ashy and burnt, slipped through the frame
And gathered your bones like Easter eggs.
With them,
With the bones of a thousand girls,
It will build a castle. Femurs make excellent improvements
Upon wrought iron gates.
Toothless skulls top the spikes, omniscient.
I was five when I got lost in the looking-glass for the first time.
Maybe four, maybe six.
I sat before it, painting my lips a garish red. I paused.
Dropped the lipstick.
It wasn’t me in the mirror. “Not me,” I said.
“Not me.”
The Looking-Glass World has chased me ever since.
I walk through the red poppy field, sleepy, air smelling like dirt,
Blood smelling like candy floss, the little girl
Who never got lost long enough to dissolve
But never got un-lost long enough to resolidify.
My milk teeth have all fallen out, some swallowed, some sold.
My soft bones ache when I look in the mirror too long.
“Not me,” they say.
“Not me.”