Mouthful of Forevers - Clementine Von Radics

• “I sat on the fire escape until the ashtrays were snowdrifts, watching for storms on the horizon. Begging the world for a reason to lock all the doors. Change came to me so ugly then. Showed up alone. What no one ever talks about is how dangerous hope can be. Call it forgiveness with teeth.” Excerpt: That Spring Everything...
• “She will hear only the terrible stories. How I left you. How I lied.

She will wonder (as I have) how someone as wonderful as you could love a sinkhole 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 every groan in the cold sweat of night. She will know every corner of you is haunted by me.” Excerpt: I Pity the Woman...

• “He is drowning in his own sadness. Drowning people often believe that if they grab hold of someone else they can be saved, but it just makes you both sink faster.” / “I am 20 and in love with someone who lies. ” / “I am 22 and crying because this new set of promises wants to kiss me, and I still taste like betrayal.” Excerpt: “The Poet Finally Drops the Bullshit”
• “Leave my house where it stands. Let me have this. This crooked

home; the only person who has ever promised not to leave me. Let me be worthy of the first good thing. I am terrified I will break his heart just because I feel restless; because it is between me and what I hunger for.” Excerpt: “Leave Her Lips for Some Younger, Prettier Girl”

• “That mouthful of thorns you called our last kiss still lingers after so many others.” (Here Is The Bitter Truth)
• “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.” / “There were times I was reckless. In my struggle to survive I hurt others. Apologies do not make good bandages.” Excerpt: This Year
• “I drank you like the cure when maybe you were the poison.” Excerpt: All This Time
• “When I get drunk all I do is talk about you and kiss boys who aren’t you.” Excerpt: Three-Day Weekend
• “Superheroes always have broken hearts and tragic backstories, so maybe I’m doing okay. In my dreams we are brave enough to leap tall buildings in a single bound, and see through walls and also never lie to each other. Promise me this: when you finally leave me, you’ll get creative. Tell me I was more disappointing than your childhood. Send me your bloody ear with a letter saying, I’ve got to Gogh, you’re making me crazy. I am hard to love but know this much: you are the only thing I like doing more than writing poems.” Excerpt: When He Asks Me To Describe Fear
• “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.” Excerpt: Same Moon
• “ I have been drinking about you for 2 days. Lately you remind me of a wild thing” / “Here is the truth: It is hard to be in love with someone who is in love with someone else. I don’t know how to turn that into poetry.” Excerpt: 3 Beers In
• “Oh my darlin’, it is time you learn everything worth loving takes hard work and patience. See, I know you. You are the good half of me. 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.” Excerpt: My Father Sits Me Down...
• “I say we. Like you weren’t just standing there, watching me bruise. Did you know I built us a home, laid the brick, filled it with Jameson and apple-cheeked children? I tried to slip the key onto your tongue but you cannot kiss a smile.” Excerpt: The Wedding
• “ Everyone else isn’t you.

It turns out that’s a huge problem for me.” Excerpt: Things I Do When I Cannot Hold You

• “Once you kissed my stomach and I started crying.” / “You are the most beautiful thing I have seen in months. I was not good to the last person I loved so I punished my heart (I let it break and bleed out then roughly sewed it back together).” / “You asked why I never write anything honest so I am writing you this.”
• “you have been trying to drown my whole life.” / “I don’t know why this business of living is so much harder for you.” Excerpt: The First Time You Washed Up At Our Door
• “And he is still gone. And grief is a swamp that sinks much deeper than you’d expect. And I am still here. I still remember him.” Excerpt: When I Was Seven Years Old
• “The story behind us is until I lost you I had no idea what you were worth.” Excerpt: The Story Behind Lobsters
• “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.” Excerpt: The Ways I Didn't Leave You
• “He used to love me, and now he’s just a stranger who happens to know all my secrets.” (It's Just So Strange)
• "Our vows, a book of prayers I buried with the dead." Excerpt: Cleopatra's Palace
• “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.” Excerpt: Some Day I Will Stop Being Young
• “Maybe you didn’t know how it feels the way a man stares at a little girl’s legs like they’re lollipop sticks. Like her sugar cube body would melt in his mouth. Maybe you don’t know then how it feels to be devoured. ” / “How can I forgive you for turning me into the poison other daughters learn to swallow?” Excerpt: Lolita Addresses Her Author