The Children's Theater

Lyrics

Up past the heart of the house.
Up past the sleepers and their dreams.
The second floor is a blue map under the moon.
The real dark begins on the attic stairs.

I keep my hand on the wall. The paper is cold.
The faces in the Portrait Hall turn as I pass, their painted eyes follow the sound of my feet.
I don't look back.
The Servant's Stair Landing is a listening post, a breath held between floors.
One more flight.
The air gets thin and smells like paper, a hundred years of yesterday's news.

The Attic Landing. A kingdom of doors.
To the left, the Dress Form Room, a party of headless ghosts.
To the right, the Doll Room. No. Not tonight.
Their little glass eyes are too loud when it's quiet.
I choose the small door at the end, the one with the crooked star tacked to it.

And the door sighs open. The audience is waiting.
They are always waiting.
A single bare bulb hangs over the little stage.
The splintery wood floor knows my weight.
This is the place where the made-up stories are true.

Our backdrop is a forest, painted in 1932.
The trees are more real than the ones outside.
The moon is a cardboard circle, but it gives real light.
In the corner, the costume trunk, smelling of cedar and greasepaint.
I lift the heavy lid.
A king's cloak, a moth-eaten crown.
A silver dress for a girl who flew.

The smell of the red velvet cape has the exact shape of a forgotten name whispered into a hand.
I remember the play. Or I remember remembering it.
The lines were written in chalk on the floor and washed away by a leak in 1968.
But the words stayed in the wood.
They rise up like dust in the spotlight.

The audience is waiting. They are always waiting.
The eyeless Dress Forms.
The fox from the Taxidermy Room.
The forgotten uncles from Portrait Storage, leaning against the wall.
They are the best audience. They never look away.

I step into the light.
The bedsheet curtain trembles.
There is no script.
I take a breath.
The play begins.