Susan Richardson
Susan Richardson is an award winning, internationally published poet. She is the author of Things My Mother Left Behind, from Potter’s Grove Press, and also writes the blog, “Stories from the Edge of Blindness”. You can find her on Twitter @floweringink, listen to her on YouTube, and read more of her work on her website.
The Ghosts Will be There in the Morning
I am the moon slivering into twilight,
fighting to fall asleep,
tossing in the sheets,
fitful in the grip of words
that become stains
I can’t scrub from my mind.
fat, failure, cheat.
I pop a couple of Xanax
to smooth the wrinkles
out of painful thoughts,
and leave my broken pieces
on the bedside table.
The ghosts will be there in the morning.
It is a bumpy ride into the hands of sleep,
a dose of darkness that falls
with heaviness behind my eyes.
I slip into crevices filled
with thick bands of forgetfulness.
Beneath the touch
of drug induced slumber,
I am a wraith who swallows stars,
heart made of water
and fingers like petals,
weightless
in the center of the sky.
This is a temporary dwelling.
The thud of memory taps
insistent fingers on a delicate shell,
guilt waiting patiently to splinter my dreams,
lingering in the corners of my consciousness.
Blades of shame break through cracks,
pulling me by my frail hair
into the throat of a violent sun.
Sheila-Na-Gig online 