THE EXHIBITION
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THE EXHIBITION •
‘Barren’, ‘Besotted’ & ‘Eros’
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.
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.