Blackberry Blood
by Claire Benevento
I wore long sleeves so the blackberry blood would only stain my hands. I let
the thorns catch the cloth and tug at my jeans as I waded through the wild
patch. Blueberry bushes are so much friendlier. You can reach through to the
shyest fruits without being grabbed by brambles.
If it was my skin ripping and not my sleeves I wouldn’t do it, of course —
I couldn’t override my nervous system telling me to pull away but I
wonder what it would be like letting branches cling to me, needles
sinking in and holding me too tight to breathe.
I’m getting desperate for
sensation.
***
Claire Benevento has spent most of her life in Kirksville, Missouri, where she is a fourth-year undergraduate student at Truman State University, studying Creative Writing and Spanish. She serves as the poetry editor of Windfall, Truman’s student-run and student-submitted literary magazine. Her poetry appears in Steam Ticket Journal.