Poetry by Susan Richardson

     Nick Fisher CC

​
Evening in Exile

I am in exile, surrounded by echoes
of girlhood, faltering against glass
that warps the plains of my face.
The house is cold and eats up my pulse,
choking me with the stench of terminal illness.
My dead mother traipses out of a photograph
to tempt me with the cure for a hollow heart.
I reach into the silence,
longing for the solid timbre of her voice.
She slips through my fingers.
My hands have turned to water.
I hold my breath and spin like a child,
hoping the dizziness will wash the scent
of loss from my eyes.
The ground pulls me to my knees
slams me into the refrain of a fat girls lament.
I shatter in the dust of china dolls
and stale pain killers,
my voice lost in the frigid sounds of emptiness.
I struggle out of my skin,
change the color of my hair
and plan to start a diet tomorrow.
 
 


Before you touch me
 
Whisper to me in tongues
Rinse the fury from your mouth
Scrub god off your teeth
Sing me the blues
Buckle on a rhinestone collar
Lace up your steel toed boots
Wrap your fingers in leather
Slip into a blue dress
Crack a smooth whip
Get down on your knees and pray
Wipe the blood off your lips
Suck on a blue lollipop
Down a shot of tequila
Swallow your envy
Bury your judgement in the pit your throat
Stare silently into my blue eyes
And please, leave your conscience at home
 


Susan Richardson lives and writes in Los Angeles.  In addition to poetry, she writes a blog called, Stories from the Edge of Blindness. Her work has been published in Rust + Moth, Foxglove Journal, Amaryllis, The Writing Disorder, Eunoia Review, Dodging the Rain, Barren Magazine, and Burning House Press, among others.  She was awarded the Sheila – Na – Gig 2017 Winter Poetry Prize, featured in the Literary Juice Q&A Series, and chosen as the Ink Sweat & Tears March 2018 Poet of the Month. Her poetry has also been nominated for Best of the Net.