Mutherbug White

“There Is A Lion In My Living Room

I feed it raw meat
so it does not hurt me.
It is a strange thing
to nourish what could kill you
in the hopes it does not kill you.”
― 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

“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

“I pity the woman who will love you
when I am done. She will show up
to your first date with a dustpan
and broom, ready to pick up all the pieces
I left you in. She will hear my name so often
it will begin to dig holes in her. That
is where doubt will grow. She will look
at your neck, your thin hips, your mouth,
wondering at the way I touched you.
She will make you all the promises I did
and some I never could. She will hear only
the terrible stories. How I drank. How I lied.
She will wonder (as I have) how someone
as wonderful as you could love a monster
like the woman who came before her. Still,
she will compete with my ghost.
She will understand why you do not look
in the back of closets. Why you are afraid
of what’s under the bed. She will know
every corner of you is haunted
by me.”
― Clementine von Radics