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Once, in the midst of an autumn night,
I opened brand new eyes, and met a man,
Whom they called granpa, I think...
though I'm starting to forget.
When I grew a little taller, he told me
That for a very long time, he'd waited
to finally meet me.
He'd painted some pretty pictures,
and I tried to copy them, with a sticky child's hand,
and in the pictures we would make,
he'd tell me a story, about how all of them were real,
somewhere.
Stories of his youth, of cherry pies and apple dumplings,
of the war, his fear of sharks.
Impossible tales of a time with no Television,
when your imagination, was all you ever had
Or so I'm told.
It was a long time ago
and I really can't remember.
And when he got even older,
he talked a lot of home, and how he missed it.
He really missed it, he said.
He'd give anything.
And finally, when he left me, one summer at lunch time,
that's where he went, they told me.
He'd gone home, and that's all.
He's happy now
or so they tell me.
Because I really don't know.

Years before, on a sunny, summer morning,
Alice met a man, named Charles,
who'd been watching her, for a very long time.
She was smart, and he was strange,
Or so I'm told.
I can't remember.
He had a camera in one hand,
hers in the other.
She was very young, then,
and he rather old.
But he told her a story, that day,
that a thousand ages, now behold.
He told her that there was a place, out there,
one like you'd never imagine.
A place of wonder, of curious madness
And beneath the sun, that day so long ago,
Little Alice, she fell down a rabbit hole
and years later, when her time came,
again, that's where she went.
She's drinking tea, right now and forever,
With a rabbit and a hatter, or so I'm told.
Because honestly,
I can't be sure.
I don't remember.

A few years later, waiting on a park bench,
there sat a play-write, by the name of James,
pondering the pages of an empty tale he couldn't tell,
when he found a woman, and her son.
Her name was Wendy, or so I'm told,
Because, truly, I'm not sure that's really it,
and his was Peter, I suppose,
and they were very tired.
So James took them to a faraway place,
on the second star to the right,
and he called it Neverland
or so I'm told.
Because, I'm starting to forget these things.
And I hear that, when you stayed there,
all you had to do
was believe.
And anything could happen.
You wouldn't have to grow up,
so you'd never have to die.
You could stay young forever.
Or so I'm told.
I don't know.
But if this place exists,
then Peter, and Wendy and James,
They're there, right now, I bet.
Playing games with the fairies,
just like Alice, down in Wonderland,
just like my Grandpa, wherever home becomes
when finally, it's time to go back.
Wherever they went, I'm sure they're happy.
Atleast, that's what they say.
It's nicer there, there are streets of gold,
sometimes, they call it “they yellow brick road.”
and Dorothy...I think she walks that road every night, up there,
and the poppies can't make here go to sleep
because she's already in the nicest, sweetest dream.
Or so I tell myself
because, really, I'll never know
until, finally, it's my turn.
And someday then,
when life's book ends,
I'll get to really do all those things
That I've dreamt of, for all these years.
I'll play croquet with the Queen of Hearts,
I'll battle Captain Hook.
I'll walk a road of yellow brick,
with shoes that bring me home.
And I'll paint a picture, one more time,
with my grandpa, who'd been waiting for me
who'd been watching me, for all these years.
And I'll be home, this time.
Or so I pray.
I'll go to that place, that I've built in my heart,
where my dreams will all come true.
And that's all I know, really,
even when I'm too old to remember all the rest.
And so I hang on
to this cup of ageless tea.
And this journal
where every story ever told
once began, with nothing but a dream.
And that's what I tell them,
when they fear the dark ahead.
I tell them that, really,
at the end of the road to Oz,
When the sun goes down, in wonderland,
when the moon shines bright, in Neverland,
When your mother calls you home, to dinner....
This place, it's always open to you.
And, honestly, that's all we ever
need to know.
So don't forget that.
Please remember.
And don't lose your sense of home.
Imagine one, a place of make believe,
and someday, I think,
you'll really get to go there.
And you'll smile, and you'll fly,
and you'll remember everything.
Everything.
Every moment of your childhood, every breath of your youth,
and you'll taste it all, on your tongue, again.
Forget everything, for now,
because someday, it'll all come back to you.
And in the end,
that's all I ever
did remember.