How it Began

How It Began

Sweet music.
I would play on the baby grand piano-
Music from my soul that I hardly knew-
I was only six years old-
Notes inscribed across the page, as were the
Bass and treble clefs…
I would dance in my bedroom at twilight and as I
Listened to the waves crashing against the shore of
Rio de Janeiro-
Summer or winter,
It was always the same-
The laughter of the people and
My father’s abuse
Miserably clashing and I would
Ride my wooden rocking horse into the darkness
Wind blowing my long, dirty blond hair about,
Into the dead of night only until
My mother would tuck me into my queen-sized bed
Promptly at eight o’clock-
The sound of the macumba on the beach did not frighten me as
Did the snakes lying at the foot of my bed or upon the
Kerry blue scatter rug, rumpled by my open closet door-
Sweet music played in the back of my mind
My own tunes I had brilliantly composed
Couldn’t overpower the terrors of the darkness and the
Echoing sounds of the wild animals that
Dumped more snakes around my bed-
I rode upon a merry- go- round of horror every night and
My screams summoned my mother to my room and
Only the voices that were not even real could
Deter the insanity of the midnight hour-
Finding myself next to my mother in her bed,
Displacing my father, all I could see
Was that snake wrapped around a severed woman’s hand
Floating and hovering before my eyes-
In some other place I hardly recognized,
Maybe twenty years later, though it was the same bed
I was too frightened to arise from at dawn only because
The rotting bodies beneath my bed would
Devour me and consume me if I did-
Voices, silent but eerily frightening would scream out my name and
It was then they took me away and locked me in that place-
Going back nearly fifty years now I never would have believed that
I would live my own macumba
Losing touch with reality,
Listening to none but bittersweet music of my
Tormented soul,
Snakes could never be as frightening as
Hearing voices that would tell me
They wanted to kill me and
Whether it was
Summer or winter-
It would always be the same,
Mounting my own proud stallion,
Though imaginary,
I would ride into the depths of futility
Only coming outside on occasions to visit
A world that still terrifies me and
Dance beneath the full moon at twilight
Wishing that I could only hear the sounds of waves
Crashing against the shore again,
Only because they would drown out
The sounds of those voices, and
I would still write my own song, though a sad one,
The poetry of my heart-
Whether summer or winter-
I know that
Things shall always
Be the same- although
I just keep on dancing as I recall
The sweetness of that music and the innocence of my soul
As I would still mount my wooden horse in my fondest dreams and
Gallop away
Into the dead of the night…

Claudia Krizay