Mutherbug White

“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

“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

“Someday I will stop being young and wanting stupid tattoos.

There are 7 people in my house. We each have different genders. I cut my hair over the bathroom sink and everything I own has a hole in it. There is a banner in our living room that says “Love Cats Hate Capitalism.” We sit around the kitchen table and argue about the compost pile and Karl Marx and the necessity of violence when The Rev comes. Whatever the fuck The Rev means.

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 us to spend the next 80 years together eating Doritos and riding bikes. I want to be Oscar the Grouch. I want him and his girlfriend to be Bert and Ernie. I want us to live on Sesame Street and I will park my trash can on their front stoop and we will be friends every day. If I ever seem grouchy it’s just because I am a little afraid of all that fun.

There is a river running through this city I know as well as my own name. It’s the first place I’ve ever called home. I don’t think its poetry to say I’m in love with the water. I don’t think it’s poetry to say I’m in love with the train tracks. I don’t think it’s blasphemy to say I see God in the skyline.

There is always cold beer asking to be slurped on back porches.
There are always crushed packs of Marlboro’s in my back pockets. I have been wearing the same patched-up shorts for 10 days.

Someday I will stop being young and wanting stupid tattoos.”
― 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