in search of wonderland

I did not idolize my parents. I did not want to be them, to wield their power, to wear their masks or to tell their stories. I followed my older sisters, instead. Because I had seen a wondrous world in the dim flickering light of the movie theater, and they seemed to know its secret. They seemed to know how to get there. So I followed them. I followed them, and that choice has lead me deep into the woods. And I may never find my way out.

Each of my sisters has become lost herself, and she settles now on toadstools and stones. This is not the kingdom of the flickering light, so I keep wandering. I wander past waterfalls, past groves of ancient elm, past deer, past wolves. And eventually I find myself in the darkest neck. The shadows hide most things here, and the life is starved and twisted. Yet I do not fear their desperation, for I have nothing for them to take. My greatest fear is that I will join them, that my hair will grow thick and matted and my teeth become like fangs and my back contort until it can no longer hold me upright. My only hope is the kingdom, and even here I can sense it over the horizon. So I walk on.

I have found footsteps in the mud. There are places where the leaves are parted, and I suspect others have tread here. These forerunners, these trailblazers. Yes, I have come to know their mark. I see their words and their actions scrawled across the tree trunks and embedded in the rocks. These are my new older brothers and my new older sisters. I follow them carefully and wholeheartedly. I recite the words of their poetry in the dark. And I am learning to scratch the wood with my fingers, and now I leave their mark.