Uptown, there is a church.
It is curvy like a woman should be, wrapping around a corner avenue.
This church is made of stone and wood carvings and stained glass and I spoke to God, even though we aren’t always on speaking terms.
You don’t have to answer me back, I whispered.
Elevated, with stage in front of me, and a jump contemplated and a staircase leading nowhere, I sat on a theatre seat. I tried to ignore the smell of mildew and judgement.
There was a ledge, which looked down on the pews and pulpit. It was protected by a criss-cross see-through fence, that I wanted to sew myself into. Or, peek into each diamond eye and notice the restricted images.
I am preparing for a performance. Of movement. Sexuality. A body. Some revelations. Singing, perhaps. Condoms, because I have always wanted to tear one with my teeth in the house of God and nudity because….well….ditto.
We will make sure to clean the stage, said one of the curators, earlier.
No, I said. I like that it’s dirty.
Prayer dust.
Flakes of skin of mourners, sinners, absolutionists.
I scribbled in my notebook:
body as stained glass
three-dimensional rainbow magnifications of angels and prophets
a shatter
grit
a tutorial of how
sex as performance
the nudity of church or religion or belief
I think I want to believe in something strong enough to get me through all my death thoughts.
I think I want to ask God what s/he thinks about gender and push-up bras and botox and welfare and homelessness and anxiety attacks and fat free everything and student loan debt and the rise in gluten allergies and if it’s OK that I used to be a sex worker.
Forgive me [?]
Friday, June 1st, I press my sexual politics onto a stage in a church in NYC at the Movement Research Festival. And I’m thinking about what it means to talk about sex in a building where God lives or Bibles rest or hands clasp and tongues pray.
Will they let me in?
Aimee Herman 