Andrea

“I wonder if you know yet that you’ll leave me. That you
are a child playing with matches and I have a paper body.
You will meet a girl with a softer voice and stronger arms and she
will not have violent secrets or an affection for red wine or eyes
that never stay dry. You will fall into her bed and I’ll go back
to spending Friday nights with boys who never learn my last name.

I have chased off every fool who has tried to sleep beside me
You think it’s romantic to fuck the girl who writes poems about you.
You think I’ll understand your sadness because I live inside my own.
But I will show up at your door at 2 am, wild-eyed and sleepless.
and try and find some semblance of peace in your breastbone
and you will not let me in. You will tell me to go home.”
― Clementine von Radics

“What doesn’t kill you leaves disfiguring scars
What doesn’t kill you fills you with paralyzing self-hatred
What doesn’t kill you makes you an unfit mother  
What doesn’t kill you makes it all so hard
What doesn’t kill you wakes you up in the middle of the night
What doesn’t kill you turns you into an alcoholic
What doesn’t kill you makes you do unforgivable things to the people you love
What doesn’t kill you makes you afraid for the rest of your life
What doesn’t kill you might make you kill them”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“The day I bought my cane, I realized
I was through with the burden of feet. Instead,
I am going to become a mermaid.
I have always liked the ocean, the promise
of depth. I am tired of this dry world,
all of this dust and sickness, these barren fields.
I want to dive without drowning. I want to kiss sharks.
I want men to carve me into the bows of their ships
like a prayer, before I lure them into the depths
with my fishnet mouth. I want the beauty,
the gorgeous mutation, the fairytale of half body.
All the wisdom of a woman, without the failures of sex.
I am plunging. I am not coming up for air.
I do not want all this human,
my legs move like they resent being legs,
my body is wrecked by all this gravity.
I cannot face another morning waking up
with no hope of a fairytale. Here on land,
I am always drowning. Here on land,
I cannot move.”
― Clementine von Radics

“You are on the floor crying,
and you have been on the floor crying
for days.
And that is you being brave.
That is you getting through it
as best you know how.
No one else can decide
What your tough looks like.”
― Clementine von Radics