Original illustration from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by John Tenniel
Blonde, blue-eyed, born on a Thursday.
She cries as she crosses over.
Breathless, beaten, breaking her back,
Mother fell asleep that same morning.
Father hisses, ‘Alice.’
Bluebells, buttercups, daisies in a chain.
Stems braiding, toes tapping,
Little child laughing behind a tree.
Nanny says, ‘Don’t wander off.’
But Thursday's child has far to go.
Dark, damp, rich and cold.
Knees in the dirt, white socks gone green.
Fingers and nose over the edge.
White fluffy tail down in the dark.
Alice, falling. She cries as she crosses over.
Another piece from last semester.
I’ve always felt very close to Alice and her story – I remember watching the 1951 Disney film (maybe on VHS at my Grandma’s house, but this was ages ago) and loving every weird bit of it. One time I dressed up in my Alice costume to see the Princess Parade at Disneyland Paris with my family, which was smaller at the time, and the actress playing Alice ran over from her place in the parade to say hello to me. I think Lewis Carroll was the first author’s name I memorised.
There’s something about being a young girl who’s a bit strange. Maybe it’s the connection between surrealism and being an autistic woman – something’s off but never enough to be outrageously off. Alice in Wonderland sits in that uncanny valley, which was the thing that made my Mum want me to stop watching the film. I can’t blame her, or the Nanny in this poem, for pulling a child away from an edge. I just found it fascinating.
I feel Alice is forever untouched by autistic masking, growing up, being sensible. Though she’s very much a little English lady, speaking perfectly and dressing as her governess dressed her, she still wanders off and does things little girls are not supposed to do. I could relate to that at 6 years old. I wished I could accidentally fall into a world of my own as well.
The funny thing about this is that, about a month after I wrote ‘Down’, I listened to Caroline Polachek’s album Desire, I Want to Turn Into You for the first time (and I really, really recommend it). Her song ‘Bunny Is a Rider’ references Alice in Wonderland with the lyrics:
'AWOL on a Thursday
Tryna go ask Alice
Tryna catch that rabbit'
I chose Thursday as Alice’s birthday in this poem because of the old nursery rhyme: ‘Thursday’s child has far to go’. Aside from choosing it because it’s also my own birthday, I felt Thursday embodies that weird energy of being somewhere but not at the end. That’s where Alice is.