Mouthful of Forevers Quotes

“I think I like my brain best
in a bar fight with my heart.
I think I like myself a little broken,
with rough edges, a little harder
to grasp. I like poetry
better than therapy anyway.
The poems never judge me
for healing wrong.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“I said, I love you
when I meant something much
more specific, I should have said,
Please don't leave me,
I'm afraid to sleep alone.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“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

“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

“You never need to apologize
for how you chose to survive.
-You Have Six Tattoos”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“Getting everything you ever wanted does not make you want less”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

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

Then use that bullet.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“There will always be 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 rain in 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 lightning.
You don't need to grow up
to find greatness.

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

and burn.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“He used to love me, and now he’s just a stranger who happens to know all my secrets.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“Mouthful of Forevers I am not the first person you loved. You are not the first person I looked at with a mouthful of forevers. We have both known loss like the sharp edges of a knife. We have both lived with lips more scar tissue than skin. Our love came unannounced in the middle of the night. Our love came when we’d given up on asking love to come. I think that has to be part of its miracle.   This is how we heal. I will kiss you like forgiveness. You will hold me like I’m hope. Our arms will bandage and we will press promises between us like flowers in a book. I will write sonnets to the salt of sweat on your skin. I will write novels to the scar on your nose. I will write a dictionary of all the words I have used trying to describe the way it feels to have finally, finally found you.   And I will not be afraid of your scars.   I know sometimes it’s still hard to let me see you in all your cracked perfection, but please know: Whether it’s the days you burn more brilliant than the sun or the nights you collapse into my lap, your body broken into a thousand questions, you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I will love you when you are a still day. I will love you when you are a hurricane.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“The good news is you survived. The bad news is you're hurt and no one can heal you but yourself.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“I am terrified
I will break his heart
just because I feel restless;
because it is between me
and what I hunger for”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“Here’s the truth: It is hard to be in love with someone who is in love with someone else.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“I don't know why
I've got so much hope
pinned to someone who will never call me home.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“What no one ever talks about is how dangerous hope can be.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“You told me mornings were the best time to break your own heart. So here I am, smoking your brand of cigarettes for the scent. I wonder if you still sing Beatles songs as you make coffee. You said your mother used to sing them to you when you couldn’t sleep, nineteen years before we met, twenty before you moved your clothes out of our closet while I was at work. By the way, I hate you for leaving all the photographs on the fridge. Taking them down felt like peeling off new scabs, like slapping a sunburn. I spent so many nights carving your body into pillows, I can promise you nothing feels like sleeping with your arm around me and your breath in my ear. Still, it’s comforting to know we sleep under the same moon, even if she’s so much older when she gets to me. I like to imagine she’s seen you sleeping and wants me to know you’re doing well.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“When the poems don’t come, don’t open the vodka.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“When will I sop belonging
to this hungry thing inside of me?”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“Drowning people often believe that if they grab hold of someone else they can be saved, but that just makes you both sink faster.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“In my struggle to survive I hurt others. Apologies do not make good bandages”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“You break the hearts
of better people
who get in your way.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“I stopped going to my therapist
Because I knew my therapist
was right, and I wanted
to keep being wrong.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“Every Time a Man Yells

I am seven years old again
and he is packing that suitcase
once more.

Picking me up by the neck,
teaching me obedience.

To be soft,
like a belly of a fish
exposed to a knife.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“I’m not sure what to say about struggle except that it feels like a long, dark tunnel with no light at the end. You never notice until it’s over the ways it has changed you, and there is no going back. We struggled a lot this year. For everyone who picked a fight with life and got the shit kicked out of them: I’m proud of you for surviving.
This year I learned that cities are beautiful from rooftops even when you’re sad and that swimming in rivers while the sun sets in July will make you feel hopeful, no matter what’s going on at home. I found out my best friend is strong enough to swing me over his shoulder like I’m weightless and run down the street while I’m squealing and kicking against his chest. I found out vegan rice milk whipped cream is delicious, especially when it’s licked off the stomach of a boy you love.
This year I kissed too many people with broken hearts and hands like mousetraps. If I could go back and unhurt them I would. If I could go back even farther and never meet them I would do that too. I turned 21. There’s no getting around it. I’m an adult now. Navigating the world has proved harder than I expected. There were times I was reckless. In my struggle to survive I hurt others. Apologies do not make good bandages.
I’m not sure what to say about change except that it reminds me of the Bible story with the lions’ den. But you are not named Daniel and you have not been praying, so God lets the beasts get a few deep, painful swipes at you before the morning comes and you’re pulled into the light, exhausted and cut to shit.
The good news is you survived. The bad news is you’re hurt and no one can heal you but yourself. You just have to find a stiff drink and a clean needle before you bleed out. And then you get up. And start over.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“People like us are not good with words.
What we mean gets muddled and wrong
somewhere between our minds
and our mouths.

We make art to say how we feel.

Here: These are the chords
to Make You Feel My Love.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“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.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“I am 22 and cryig because this new set of promises wants to kiss me, and I still taste like betrayal.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“I am learning how to tell stories
so I can tell the world story.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“All this time
I drank you like the cure
when may be
you were the poison”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

“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.”
― Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers