[ Alice Pretending ]

Slip in through a hole
Where the moon don’t shine
Spent too long trying
To make him mine

Kept on running
But I fell behind
Butterfly, better fly
away this time

Alice Pretending began as a response—inspired, in part, by the Serena Ryder album Is It O.K. It ended up as a question: Who Are You?

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Let’s pretend that we have colds
and lie in bed and wear our robes around the house
And breathe in basement books of old
and dusty words of stories told about somewhere else

– – – – –

What if you ended up somewhere else—down the rabbit hole, over the rainbow?
Turned upside down…who are you?

Take off the mask. Shed the old stories.
Bare and unguarded…who are you?

– – – – –

Would you mind if I pretended we were somewhere else, doing something we wanted to.

– – – – –

What if you were given the opportunity to be “somewhere else”? Do something else?

Would you?

Enthusiastically jump down the hole?

Passionately drink the magic potion?

Wrench your flesh from the cocoon and fly away this time?

Would you?

• • •

Alice Pretending, mixed-media assemblage ©2011, Jen Payne.

Serena Ryder song quotes, in order of appearance: All for Love, Brand New Love, Weak in the Knees. Visit her website here.