Thank you always.

Today is Tuesday. 

I'm in love with this day of the week almost as much as I am in love with the effortlessness of breathing right now.

I climbed a hillish slump of earth today and as I reached the top some sleeping beast inside me awoke. 

It brushed the leaves off of its snout, trotted in a circle for a moment to awaken its bones and then--

then it stretched its wings as far as the eye could possibly see. 

One couldn't believe the life that those wings brushed into my soul as it beat and beat against the perfect autmnness of the air.

In that moment life existed. 

The air was perceived as perfection to my senses.

The wind jostled my long braid and entered my spirit similarly. 

The disposition of flying overcame me. 

(We were the same thought.)

The wings that were rooted in my pulsing beast suddenly became my own and sprouted to the sky in an earnestness I did not know this earth could witness from me!

"Oh Autumn!" I cried with my head tilting backward as to satisfy my senses further.

"Oh blessed Moon that calls my name and Wind that speaks the language of flight and longing and freedom to my wings!" 

I spoke these things because I did not care if anyone could or could not hear me.

I could hear me and that was all that mattered.

If ever there was a person who had ever felt such effusive happiness I knew them not! For now I could not only feel free, but I could soar far above heartache and worry! Now I knew I was free as too seldom humans are not.

It felt exquisite because something whispered,

"Come as you are, not as you wish you were."

And I believed that little voice, for it was my own.

Oh how I love the sound of loose gravel against my shoes and the thought of worry far below them. 

To my dear sister, 

You are perfection of spirit and compassion.

To my lovely friend, my companion and guide--I love you more than the hikes we share, the boots your carelessly tossed from your feet and gave to me. 

To the one who thinks of nothing that is not love-driven:

You are the one I wish to watch every cloudless sunset with. 

Always dear sister. 

Thank you for the freedom loving you brings. 

How I love Tuesdays. 

How perfection comes in many packages.

Just so.

-k.p.b.

September 29, 2015

Tuesday

9:29PM

{On a day with sprinkled rain, incandescent autumn wind

 and a trail filled with nothing far greater than everything.}

Thank you Heavenly Father. 

Thank you always.

Another delayed thought >> december

By the way, it snowed on Christmas this year.
I don't know if I ever mentioned that.
It's kind of important.
(k.b.)

I'm only curious.

I'm only curious--

why wasn't I good enough for you?

Which part of me was it
you couldn't seem to stand?

Was it the way I chewed my food,
slowly and with subtle purpose?

Could it be the misshapen vision
of my heart
somehow
(for some odd reason I cannot name)
longing for your hand?

The socks I wore were strange.
The books I read were home to me.
My sense of correction a little too strong.

True, I could never love another thing more than I did the Autumn breeze,
but that was never suppose to mean we couldn't
at least try to prove that wrong.

You were never a Darcy,
believe me you could never even try.
Nor a Dean, a Hardy, a Wadsworth or even a Thomas.
But it didn't matter to me. 

All I saw, all I wanted was a spark.

A zang.
A burst of marble sunlight--
a song only I could hear, no matter
how sad the lyrics were.

But I guess some happiness is never meant to be.
Or perhaps it is happiness
that I am missing only because I wanted
you more
than I accepted myself.

Perhaps.

But what a lovely idea we would've been.
What a perfect array of
chaos and explosion we
could've given the sky,

like the stars.

-k.p.b.

9/20/15
11:58PM

letting go

There is something so very beautiful 
about letting go.

I know at first it feels like
fire
unfathomable and unadulterated 
flames; 

but I promise you
 with my fingers tracing swiftly over my 
swollen heart--
it gets better. 

It's worse than ripping off a bandage, 
but it feels infinitely 
different 
the feeling of weight that
 releases you.

And then all at once--
you can fly. 

It's incredible. 

(Just so.)

-k.p.b.

September 21. 2015
11:21PM
{Almost Tuesday}

Farewell: (Firecracker boy)
"Cold Moon" by: Zolas
"Better Man" by: Leon Bridges 
"Dirty Paws" by: Of Monsters and Men
"Sunburn" by: Ed Sheeran
"Paris" by: Magic Man
"I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by: Sleeping At Last (cover)

To: the Autumn Wind

Have you ever stood at the precipice of unfathomable yearning
and the brisk ferocity of insanity?
If you ever know such a feeling, such a kick in the heart, 
my only advice is this:
Run until your demons can't catch you.

Allow me to explain:

I'm in love with something I can't have.
My heart hungers for a dark and sfumato creature 
that both stalks my happiness and chases my monsters away.
I'm in love with the Autumn coldness, 
the sweet and elegiac dance it plays with the bending trees and temperate music. 
I hear the wind whistle through my hair sadly;
It feels like the hands of a lover tracing the outline of my nose and 
suddenly I think, "The moonlight doesn't seem to be the only thing to touch my lips." 
But it's almost too much to bear.
Almost.

I'm in love with a person too. 
A boy much like Autumn.
I first saw him standing there with hair like
fire-crackers,
exploding with dark curls in such a fierce and extreme manner it excited me.
He was exciting himself.
He had a deep felicity about him. It lurked about his crimson-ridged lips 
and sparking blue eyes (much like the painting of the humanist by Raphael Sanzio da Urbino)that ensnared a helpless captive--me.
It never occurred to me I would one day regret 
that tumult of wavy nighttime. 
One never thinks they will regret one look in a strangers eyes or one unknowing desire to kiss their lips.
I guess.

It seems all I wanted was happiness I thought I was deserving of. 

Perhaps the only thing I deserve right now is loneliness.

This sounds like such a burden, 
such a heavy and dreadful thing to wish upon oneself,
but it's quite the opposite when you think about it. 
A poet once said, 
"I know what it is to be lonely, therefore I know what it is to be loved."

Just so.

I didn't think it would end this way--
wishing for a better epilogue or worse:
finding myself trapped in the first page of meeting him.
I have but one question for that blasted Autumn wind--
Is there ever a chapter of happiness for me? 
Does the white knight ever come for me or am I doomed 
to become the ivory hero myself?

How many times did I listen to the song of Autumn and pray it would sing 
just for me?
How many times did I have to mangle my own heart
with my own delicate hands?
Just so, 
It wasn't meant to be. 

As many things are. 

And still I hear that sweet and solemn music
rushing through me like an Autumn scream of wind. 
It jostles my skirt, tugging at my soul and 
softly whispers, "Why do you cry, girl?"
Why do I cry. 
Lips move but never quite understand--do they?

"Why do I cry?"
I could ask myself that question a thousand lucid times
and never find a perfect answer. 
I bet he could-- sweet sappy Autumn.
He always plays with a human's heart 
so recklessly
he must understand its function
entirely.

I wish I could blame misery on gravity. 
It seems much easier to say, 
"Cure you gravity. Curse you."
But it is not so.

I stay lonely, 
but never truly alone. 

At least someday I will understand what it truly means 
to be loved--
and to love so fiercely and unconditionally
the Autumn wind will curse my name just as I curse gravity
for not having me. 

Someday. 

k.p.b.

September 17, 2015 
12:29PM
Thursday

Post Script:
Songs for an elegiac heart: (CAUTION: this is not an antidote, rather just the opposite) 
"My Special Angel" Malcolm Vaughan 
"Dreamy Eyes" The Four Preps
"Unchained Melody" Perry Como
"Big Girls Don't Cry" Franki Valli and the Four Seasons
"You Send Me" Sam Cooke
"God Only Knows" The Beach Boys
"Dream a Little Dream of Me" Dean Martin (version)
"Georgia on My Mind" Ray Charles
"The Way You Look Tonight" Tony Bennett
"(Today I Met)The Boy I'm Gonna Marry" Darlene Love
"La Vie en Rose" Edith Piaf 
"Magic Moments" Perry Como
"What the World Needs Now is Love" Jackie DeShannon

"Rosie"

"My Girl with Night curls"

by: Kiersten P. Benson September 8, 2015 Wednesday 6:05PM

I saw her there --

with dark night curls

and a look of innocent 
mischief
about her.

She was wondrous to see,
a scarce star to be held
gently
inside 

your hands.

So tiny --

was she, 
yet so beautiful;

and so vast and perfectly 

alive.

Never did the Autumn ever
 wish
 to see such elegance,

nor tree bend 
to greet her smiling cheeks
with a brushing branch.

Jonquil her laughter
rang through
her ribs -- 
and through her small and
 fragile
figure like

a song --
the song of

little white flowers
 of Spring.

A breath of 
life.

She strikes like
red lips

in a pale 
world.

Rosie and pillowy
slapped by the petals 
of nothing -- 

her cheeks are
 infinitely
ridged as the mountains
above earth,

above every thing 

-- and one. 

- k.p.b.

/For "Rosie"/