this is a summer blog

The Church Bed

    by Rebecca Berkman – Rivera

“Bear witness to this lost cause” murmured someone from the back.

The church was long and vapid, like the guts of a sparrow.

The men wore coats of raw hide, and black velvet suits with long silk scarves to cover their heads from the vomit and stench of the crowd: they were true aristocrats.

“Beware of the men with no heads” my mother had said. And now here I stood a headless cowboy myself facing death before them.

“He ought to burn in soil. Smoke him out for his sins.” another shrieked.

This was not the end I had supposed. This looked nothing like what I had daydreamed long ago in the back of my father’s van as we drove across the borders, in some sort of exile.

To be honest I had always thought my end would look something apocalyptic, like a sudden halt in free will: The mass collapse -a heart attack that ached of common good. Instead it looked something like this:

I lit a match sometime in my twenties and never let it go.

I waited for the slow burn to wear off: and saw that it never would.

I quickly learned that my brain was some big metaphor,

and being human,

went off in search off what that could be.

On the path to my journey I found someone who ripped my heart in two:

but I figured I still had a heart and kept on my way.

Next I came across a dying bird: a sparrow of some sort, dirty from city streets - sad from lack of oxygen. As I watched the creature gasp for life I discovered I was useless and moved away. That was right before I came to a bridge, of course, which crossed over a large purple stream, this could only mean one thing, this could only mean…

                                                                         And I jumped for fear of falling.

Below the waters edge I could hear the voices of others and decided this was good. So I stayed, and on my path toward knowledge I felt comfort and let go. I thought there’d be more courage in the end and less water.

“You were our only hope – our saving sun? What happened?”

#1 FAVORITE GRAFFITI OF THE WEEK!!!

new york premiere on july 11th, 2009 with the tenement street workshop.

written and directed by bekie berkman-rivera

starring erika strasburg and caitlin kimball.