Short stories: Pain from love

“The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good natured, thought Alice: still it had very long claws and a great many teeth…

“Cheshire-Puss…Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

Lewis Carrol: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Down the Rabbit Hole

The whisper of silk, my black silk. A whisper that screams as too many hands touch me. The guilt that only Jack Daniel’s can tame.

I am the drunken slut! My love and his friends, all clients. I’m drunk, you’re drunk, we are all drunk here. We’re all full of Cheshire grins.

Into the looking-glass! What do I see there but my shame? A thousand leering toms who never say what they mean, stare up at me from the fragments. Am I to blame for my sins; I who but obey?

Why is this tale so twisted? My knights’ armor seem so dull. Why do they masturbate as the monster thrusts in again and again? They all mock my tears. When will I awake from these Cheshire grins?

- poem by Vee Landherr

There is a place that I still walk through in my mind. Even without the haze of alcohol, this scene seems so surrealistic somehow. What is this place that haunts my poetry and my dreams, like some disquieted spirit needing exorcism? It is a place called guilt; a place I once called home. We can go there now, if you’d like.

Fall with me down the rabbit hole of memory. Watch the first step, it’s a long one. Here, feel my heart! See how it races? Yet to me it is clenched in time. Clenched like my throat.

Ah, we have arrived. See this step? My friend, Will* once skinned himself up pretty bad one night when he was drunk. If a person looked real close, a trace of his blood could be found.

Sorry about the screen door, be gentle with it. My cat, Lucifer, lived up to his name and tore it to shreds.

Anyway, here we are in the dinning room. Since my husband and I can’t afford a table, I don’t know why I call it that. Force of habit, I suppose. But, this is the perfect place for this little daybed. I’m proud that it’s the first thing a person sees when entering the house. I love it because my daddy made it for me when I was just a little girl. I remember falling in love with its cute little drawers and plaid upholstery the moment I laid eyes on it. I especially loved the scrollwork hearts. My daddy carved those hearts with his own two hands. This little couch is what I slept on until I was