How Alice found her wonderland

I was in London in the final few hours of the year, a flat in Chelsea filled with trendies from all over the city disguised as Bob Dylans underneath preppy exteriors and regurgitating rehearsed lines about life as cheap champaign swirled and spilled on floors and carpets and cigarette smoke danced along with the few girls seductively swaying in the living room. I burst open the balcony door and stumble with giddy giggles as my best friend's flowing golden locks spray in my face like the expectant fireworks to come and our third musketeer follows with beehive hair sprayed into tangled perfection.

"Shit party?" Drunk and eager to please Lottie watches me unsure of whether she should offer something better for New Year's Eve.

"Yes- if I knew it was going to be like this, I would have stayed at home and celebrated with a lovely glass of wine and conversation. I can't even hear myself think in here and some guy spilled vodka or something in my hair." Nat responded as  I survey the room from belong the thick curtains of the balcony and scan through intoxicated bodies and faces and before I can respond we are joined by Alex, a twinkle in his eye as he offers us to powder our noses 'the key to a bare able night -excuse the pun!' He sprinkles us with fairy dust and returns to the relative warmth of the party, winking back at us from inside.

We leave the party and in the relative quiet of the street we pound the Chelsea pavements, heels clip clopping as voices emanate from open windows and local pubs. Girls overdressed in glittery dresses with sequins and sparkles scream their delight as we three musketeers, clad in leather jackets and black denim shorts with biker boots and smokey eyes trot past towards the mansions.


"This is it!" Nat fumbles with the keys and lets us in. "I ought to get Eva over, I did promise her we would invite her for some wine and a toot!!" She climbs the stairs and lets us into the flat.

We make ourselves comfortable in the living room, wine glasses are propped on the table and white powder unstashed and tonight there is also tinfoil present. "I just can't wait for you to try it!!" Natalie rolls a tube and fumbles with something. Tube in mouth I inhale the oily evasive powder turned liquid turned plastic runner and As the year turns so does my mind. Red lipstick stained glasses and pale faces arguing over boys or drugs or money but nothing matters as I sit on the sofa in contemplative solitude, alone and at one with myself wrapped in lays and layers of burnt candy floss I revel in my new found friend, a lover that I will give everything to my soul, my body, my mind and my heart. It is the new year and Alice has finally found her wonderland!

Later as we amble drunken on love potions through the post bombastic firework booms that litter the inky night air, I know that i will always remember this moment as a fickle treasure in Pandora's box, at once delighted and charmed and repulsed by its seductive prowess. Dark eyeshadow and dry lips, skinny jeans and sky-high heels, pungent puke in putrid places, curt clumsyness as I tumble into bed with the drink in my belly  and the smoke in my lungs delightful as they bring darkness and shifting into shapes of created memories and euphoric imaginations.

The year has turned and Alice is down the rabbit hole into her wonderland....this is the story of her endless journeying home.

Do you remember?

Do you remember the journey as we travelled into our subconscious minds? elated from the events of the night before we let our minds collide and wonder down into the private wonderland, the comfort of the warm yet bitter taste or burned lungs on mirrored tinfoil as we exhaled our dreams and aspirations and ogled at our reflections in each other's pin pricked eyes? 

do you remember waking up hungry lost and confused long after the journey ended we waited to board the motherland to adulthood responsibility and peace but nothing came and we waited hand in hand between the covers of our feathered blankets covered with rugs and candles almost burned out just like us? 

Do you remember running through the snow in the crisp winter air our hands icy and bold as you were coughing and the blood spreading like poppies bloomed on the crystal clear unspoilt snow as we smoked cigarettes and let the water seep inside our trainers and mix with mud and pebbles to rub our blisters and yet we waited and waited and waited, because a rusty voice at the end of the phone promised escape wrapped up in a small orange plastic bag and when it came you grabbed it and not me and we both rushed to the car exhaling fumes of expectation, excitement and exhilaration we opened the doors to our metallic pod where we sat back both wet and gay and cold so cold with fear and anxious wait and as you ripped apart the baggie and placed the contents in a spoon I watched as dust melted into honey and as the silver sliver pierced your skin relief spreading over you and turned my stomach making me sick and as i opened the car door to expel the pungent contents of my stomach I watched as you declared your love to it and not to me.

Do you remember my arms as I held you sleeping or as we drank wine by the fireplace and I recited poems out of a forbidden library book how we giggled and kissed and then as we ascended the stairs to our mistress we were in fact descending into hell and waking up in the night thirsty, unsatisfied and almost dying with desire to have another hit, just one, one more?

 Do you remember when I came came home and cigarette butts like wedding confetti greeted me at the door and I climbed the stairs cos I was late and I was hungry and my insides were cold and I came and sat by the side of the bed where you were waiting with a penetrating pendant prepared to pierce my vein and soul and then as I collapsed next to you on a cloud of misery and despair we slept the dreary drifts of ghouls in limbo and I awoke my face dirty with soot and cigarette ash and you asked me where I had been last night and I giggled and cried and then we hugged and made up and again we let our mistress soothe us as things were getting bad and the cash running out and I sold my love for pennies and you no longer gave me yours and as the winds turned colder so did we and our hearts began freezing and so we went our separate ways.

Do you remember?