©Rules of The Game for A Windup Girl in A Dystopian World

Each of us is our own novel 

until our very last page, no one...

not even us...

knows how our novel will end, 

otherwise, who'd want to read it

It seems everything has fallen into place;

not quite what I had in mind,

but, nonetheless, I suppose it’s mine.

And how disgraced I might be

if I went where I pleased and

toppled all that has fallen on me—

only to suffocate underneath.

For those battered and broken

over time, I remain a mystery,

someone who lives alone with

nothing vying to grip my mind.

Endless soiled linens falling—

the devil threw us into the abyss,

the height dependent on the age of

the stains on our gowns.

I look up, passed my rising breath,

to the place where I might forget

my guilty naiveté and dry my

flooded eyes with tears of the lost.

I am Alice out of Wonderland and

there are rules of the game for a

windup girl in a dystopian world.

Mimi Wolske
All Rights Reserved