Clementine Von Radics Quotes

Here's the truth: It is hard to be in love with someone who is in love with someone else.

Drowning people often believe that if they grab hold of someone else they can be saved, but that just makes you both sink faster.

There is a river running through this city and every time my best friend laughs I want to grab him by the shoulders and shout Grow old with me and never kiss me on the mouth! I want to spend the next eighty years together, eating Doritos and riding bikes.

I am terrified
I will break his heart
just because I feel restless;
because it is between me
and what I hunger for

You are now 18
standing on the precipice,
trembling before your own greatness.

This is your call to leap.

There will always being those
who say you are too young and delicate
to make anything happen for yourself.
They don't see the part of you that smolders.
Don't let their doubting drown out
the sound of your own heartbeat.

You are the first drop of a hurricane.

Your bravery builds beyond you
You are needed by all the little girls
still living in secret, writing oceans
made of monsters and
throwing like lightening.

You don't need to grow up to find greatness.

You are stronger than the world
has ever believed you to be.
The world is waiting for you to set it on fire
Trust in yourself
and burn.

Apologies do not make good bandages.

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.

Let it heal you. Lie beside a man who's hands you trust

I want a tattoo of the first morning we woke up together. I want the memory to hurt.

On the occasion of our anniversary

I.
This morning I googled
sings of domestic abuse
to remind myself I was right.
I still flich at slamming doors,
a broken dish, a white couch.
There are days I yell so loud
I swear it's your voice in my throat.

II.
I have learned
the world is the size of a fist,
lately an open palm. Whatever
corner
you've got yourself chained up,
you will read this.

III.
Good.

When will I sop belonging
to this hungry thing inside of me?

I will love you when you are a still day.
I will love you when you are a hurricane.

You silly little girl,
you think
you've survived so long
survival shouldn't hurt anymore.

There will always being those
who say you are too young and delicate
to make anything happen for yourself.
They don't see the part of you that smolders.
Don't let their doubting drown out the sound
of your own heartbeat.

I was not good
to the last person I loved
so I punished my heart
(I let it bleed out
then roughly sewed it back together)

I stopped going to therapy
because I knew my therapist was right
and I wanted to keep being wrong.
I wanted to keep my bad habits
like charms on a bracelet.
I did not want to be brave.
I think I like my brain best
in a bar fight with my heart.
I think I like myself a little broken.
I'm ok if that makes me less loved.
I like poetry better than therapy anyway.
The poems never judge me
for healing wrong.

Little girls with big ideas are much scarier than monsters.

Oh my darlin', it is time you learn
everything worth loving
takes hard work and patience.

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.

God I want you
in some primal, wild way
animals want each other.
Untamed and full of teeth.
God I want you,
In some chaste, Victorian way.
A glimpse of your ankle
just kills me.

He used to love me, and now he's just a stranger who happens to know all my secrets.

We are not in love. Not the way I've been told
being in love feels like. But we have been sleeping
beside each other for so many nights and I
am the most beautiful doormat you have ever
walked over.

Now may be a good time to go on a long journey. The stars think you need to clear your head. The stars think you need to run.

The good news is you survived. The bad news is you're hurt and no one can heal you but yourself.

It's 11 am and I'm sitting in a restaurant
3 beers in. Believe me, even I'm surprised
I'm still alive sometimes.
I have been drinking about you for 2 days.
Lately you remind me of a wild thing
chewing through its foot. But you
are already free and I don't know what to do
except trace the rough line of your jaw
and try not to place blame.
Here is the truth: It is hard to be in love
with someone who is in love someone else.
I don't know how to turn that into poetry.

I stopped going to my therapist
Because I knew my therapist
was right, and I wanted
to keep being wrong.

But my heart is an old house
(the kind my mother
grew up in)
hell to heat and cool
and faulty in the wiring
and though it's nice to look at
I have no business
inviting lovers in.

Everyone else isn't you. It turns out that's a huge problem for me.

You break the hearts
of better people
who get in your way.

I think even if you are mostly flaws and sad stories so am I and so is everyone. I think your flaws and sad stories go well with mine. I want to kiss your sad stories on the forehead.

You never need to apologize
for how you chose to survive.

It's just so strange.
You used to love me,
and now you're a stranger
who happens to know all
of my secrets.

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.

That's the thing about heartbreak.
It's the smallest of worlds ending.
Everyone goes around you smiling,
like it's nothing to close a door.

I am learning how
to be a grown-up
who pays bills,
cooks her own meals,
and doesn't cry at words like
I think I just want to be friends.

I. Those of us born by water are never afraid enough of drowning. Bruises used to trophy my knees from my death-defying tree climb jumps. Growing up, my backyard was a forest of blackberry bushes. I learned early nothing sweet will come to you unthorned.

II. At twelve your body becomes a currency. So Jenny and I sat down and cut up all our clothes into nothing. That year I failed math class but knew the exact number of calories in a carrot stick. I learned early being desired goes hand in hand with hunger.

III. The last time I tried to scream I felt my father climbing up through my throat and into my mouth.

IV. There is a certain kind of girl who reads Lolita at fourteen and finds religion. I painted my eyes black and sucked barroom cherries to red my tongue. There was a boy who promised Judas really did love Jesus. I learned early every kiss and betrayal are up for interpretation.

V. I think he must have conferenced with my nightmares on exactly how to hurt me.

VI. He never broke my heart. He only turned it into a compass that always points me back to him.

Be merciful until you can't be.
Until you feel your heart begin to harden into a bullet.
Then use that bullet.

The difference
between being loved and being fucked
is I can't remember how the first feels.
I come to bed quiet, kiss with my eyes closed,
hate how easily I touch you.
Find me the sweetest boy, with a heart
more hopeful than spun sugar on a hot day,
I will teach him the meaning of meaningless
nights. The whole time, every moment, wishing
he'd crack me open, rib by rib, to see
how I work. How I bleed.

If anyone else were to kiss me, all they would taste is your name.

I am learning how to tell stories
so I can tell the world story.

I mean you ask me
not to fall in love with you
and then you go write poems
with your tongue
and draw constellations
in my freckles.

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 Am Jealous of Your Tattoos

And how long
they will stay with you
after I go.

When the poems don't come, don't open the vodka.