Beating feat, rising dusty tracks,
burning lungs and bated breath
departing dry, blue lips.
Running this way since dawn.

On the ground a stopwatch,
broken and old, reading a time
long since passed, eleven fifty-five.
She came this way, she came this way.

Pass the messiah, working his bench;
making sticks and stones and heavy words
As he carves, he passes the time,
speaking with a manatee.

Did she come this way, I cry
as I run by the impossible duo.
Supping on oysters, they reply
“She came this way, she came this way.”

A solemn man, heavy and old,
stands atop his brothers grave.
As I come by, he beggars reply,
“I may live, but which of us has died?”

I’ve no time for fun and games,
I wish I had replied. Did Alice come this way?
“She’s responsible for my lost twin!
She just went by, she just went by.”

Step, step, raise the ground beneath me.
She is not quick, she ran by our inaction.
If I am fast then I shall catch her, if truly
she came this way, she came this way.

In the distance, the cold sharp shock
of free flowing white-gold hair.
She is our concept, and we the people.
I can catch her yet.

Closer still, and yet the girl eludes me.
No Alice in my path, but a white rabbit;
a ghostly presence of a time long past,
mocking me with his still flight.

I ask of Alice, to the spirit of who we were
the rabbit replies “You’ve lost.
She escaped while you chased figments,
of the people you once were.

You cannot catch her now, you fool.
She’s long gone, run another path.
She ran forward while you ran back,
and Alice did not come this way.”