‘Barren’, ‘Besotted’ & ‘Eros’

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Barren

When there’s no more blood

To be had

From this shriveled and

Desiccated stone

I will let my heart

Lie fallow

In the field

This season

So there’s a chance of

Something to be collected

When the future reaping comes

Besotted

I trampled through the soot

Barefoot

For weeks

Unwilling to cleanse myself

Of you

Even though

I’m the one

who foolishly

struck the match

Until one day

I swept the ashes

Into a pail

Before carefully sifting them

Into a bottle

Bottle to vile

Vile to cup

I drank the tincture

Of the remnants

Of an incomplete love

Burned in a blaze of wildfire

grown cold

And cast aside

Whose carbon memory

now stains and sustains

Me from the inside out

Eros

I could be

A hundred women

I could make

A hundred homes

I could live

A hundred lives

But I could never

Love

As I love you

Legacy

Who will continue to hold

Our failures against us

Or sing the praises

Of our success

Once we sleep

Under stones

Carved of granite

Rebirth

Everywhere I look

I’m haunted by

The ghosts of women I used to be

They whisper to me

In sweet melodic tones

And cast their shadows

Of yesterday

On the woman

I am becoming

Becky A. Benson's work has appeared in print, online, and various television and podcast outlets. Becky holds a degree in psychology, is an advocate member of the Access to Equitable Carrier Screening Coalition, Certified Peer Support Specialist through the Child Neurology Foundation, and works for the National Tay-Sachs and Allied Diseases Association as the organization’s Family Services Manager. Find her at beckyabenson.com.