Our Last Hello
In the summer of 1976 . . .
Denny, a lover of fast cars and rock 'n roll, spends his days
with a wrench in his hand and grease on his fingers.
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If only life were as simple as fixing an engine. But with an explosive girlfriend and skeletons in his closet, he protects someone he deeply cares about by pushing her away.
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Ramie, inexperienced and naïve, yearns for a deeper connection with Denny, who captivates her attention and steals her heart. Being with him is the only time she feels safe, an unfamiliar and sometimes ill-fitting sensation. Still, circumstances conspire to keep her mired in the dreaded friend zone.
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When violence shatters her life, Ramie needs Denny, but he has disappeared. So, when a chance at healing comes her way, she settles. Better to recover in the now than to long for what may never be.
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Years stretch into decades. Was what they almost had a mirage of youth? Does love always find a way? Are second chances real? These are the questions encountered in Our Last Hello.
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SECOND PLACE WINNER
“The Weight of Seven Pounds”
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It’s the second day of fall. I was born yesterday under a waning crescent moon.
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Mama could’ve named me Autumn, but she didn’t. A nun at her Catholic school inspired my name. French, my mother asked for, and French it was. Maybe someday I’ll appreciate it. I bet I will.
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Outside the hospital, the cool wind howls, lashing my newborn cheeks. Mama’s thin jacket snaps like a whip, and her long, dark curls cling to her mauve lips, damp with unspoken fears.
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I won’t cry. My skin feels like stretched silk, cool and tight. This new world, a vast space, frightens me, but not now. I can’t cry now.
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A tremor in her arms, a frantic drumbeat in her chest. I know, as I had known in the enclosed thrum of her heart, that she needs me.
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We’d been on the sidewalk forever, or at least, as long as a baby could measure. Mama shifts me, a restless weight in her arms, swaddled in blue. She’d hoped for a boy, someone to rely on, to take care of her. I will too.
She doesn’t know it yet, but it’s who I am.
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Her gaze fixes on the empty street. Eyes, usually soft when placed on me, dart from all directions. She paces, tracing cracks in the pavement, searching for headlights that have yet to arrive.
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by Monique Rardin Richardson
A Poetry Collection
Now Available at Amazon
It is human nature to conceptualize the world consisting of beginnings and endings. This duality permeates almost everything we see, imagine, feel, and hope for. In this collection from San Joaquin Valley Writers, authors take
unique perspectives on beginnings and endings, some real and tangible, some much less so.
Poets, fiction writers, and memoirists offer images and metaphors that urge the reader to see beyond the everyday definitions of beginnings and endings. From lost love to fearful first steps, from apocalyptic and imagined
futures to tragic outcomes, from meeting someone for the first time to faded/fading memories—these and other creative takes on beginnings and endings will evoke the full range of senses and emotions in the reader.
Beginnings and Endings
Pieces of Me
“Pieces of Me” by Monique Rardin Richardson is not only a collection of autobiographical poems but it is also a story of one woman’s journey towards self-love and self-acceptance. Written with such beautiful and captivating prose, these poems speak a truth that not many people get to share or have heard in a world that is too loud for testimonies of culture and healing. The poems are enjoyable to read, offering a breath of fresh air in receiving one person’s courageous and inspirational story."
—Reader Views
"Reading Pieces of Me, snippets of memories, of loves, of hopes,
of losses, and of dreams, we see a thread of kindness that strings them together like beads. There is healing in these poems such as all art must have, and reading them, a feeling of privilege like being made privy to a sensitive diary."
—Rafael Jesús González,
Poet Laureate, Berkeley, California
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Poetry
Latest Publications
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Photograph by Monique Rardin Richardson
In Search of the One
by Monique Rardin Richardson
I slide the scratched hangers aside
wondering how many hands have touched them,
and whose stories are held in their weary,
steel, second-hand shape.
Would they share more than scars if they could?
Once more, I search for a jacket—a piece of nostalgia
worn with shorts even in winter, hoping it will magically
appear—or, at the very least, an imitation.
Obstacles and passages of time are pressed into wires.
holding used clothing, and a resemblance of my youth.
My toned torso felt the seasonal change,
but my legs warm from muscle, did not.
They raced through every California chill,
donning scuffed laced-up mid-calf boots with eyelets
hanging from shoestrings, begging for retirement.
But how could I relieve them of their duty?
They matched my security blanket constantly
wrapped snug around me.
Disappointed again, I see no replica that will carry
the warmth or softness worn through laughter
and love or the steady reassurance of its weight.
What's lost I find, is not only a leather jacket,
but the body it once shaped.
The broken-down hangers hold shadows of nothing
but aged fabric of strangers, and yet, I reach for what's not there as if it could come back—or as if I could forget.
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Last Month of May
by Monique Rardin Richardson
May feels the showers
from the tears of the world.
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Is it a curse or a blessing
to embody the emotions of all?
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They are one.
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Joy comes and goes until
it's too painful to be the keeper
of many secrets,
and smiles are too few.
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Without thought, she makes it stop.
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And the candle that shines for others
with a whisper blows out, never to be
lit again.
All Original
Literary Gifts and Nature Photography by Monique
Available in the Drop Down Shop Section.
