Alice in Lapses

Tick, tock, goes the clock;

Alice chased the rabbit, now...

time chokeholds our thoughts.

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-Gina C. 🧚‍♀️✨

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Author's Note: Funny how Alice (we as children) chased the clock-holding rabbit (our dreams) - and now all we can think about is time.

As children, we often dream about being adults, and as adults, we often dearly miss our childhood. For this piece, I wanted to not only play into this tragic irony but also use the story of Alice in Wonderland as a metaphor. You may not have been chasing a fluffy, clock-holding white rabbit as a child - per se - but I bet you were running wildly and carefree after something.

Did you catch that something? If so, how has it affected your sense of time as an adult? Time is said to move faster and faster as we age due to the lack of exposure to shiny new experiences. In essence, the magic literally does "fade".

I love this cover picture - which I created with the help of Midjourney and took me 3 days to get right - where Alice is depicted with a clock chained to her neck; having finally caught the white rabbit. The rabbit also stands behind her as a memory. Is it one of nostalgia, or one of regret? Either way, it is time that will never come back, and also one that keeps her up at night as her days inevitably pass by.

What was my white rabbit, you ask? Definitely many things. However, as I recently explained in my poem Rare Bird, I spent a great deal of my time as a child and young adult desperately trying to find my voice. While I've finally found her through poetry, I often ask myself if the time I now spend writing could be better spent doing something else. 💜

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I'm kinda obsessed with the Alice in Wonderland theme. If you are as well, you'll definitely enjoy this Free Form poem of mine, where I express this concept in more detail:

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