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    Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across: Poems by Mary Lambert
    Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across: Poems by Mary Lambert
    Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across: Poems by Mary Lambert
    Ebook136 pages1 hour

    Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across: Poems by Mary Lambert

    By Mary Lambert

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    About this ebook

    Beautiful and brutally honest, Mary Lambert's poetry is a beacon to anyone who's ever been knocked down—and picked themselves up again. In verse that deals with sexual assault, mental illness, and body acceptance, Ms. Lambert's Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across emerges as an important new voice in poetry, providing strength and resilience even in the darkest of times.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateOct 23, 2018
    ISBN9781250195883
    Author

    Mary Lambert

    Mary Lambert is a multifaceted artist—a singer, songwriter, musician, and poet. Along with Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, she is the talent behind the incredible Grammy-nominated single "Same Love." A mental health advocate and LGBTQ activist, Mary lives in Seattle, Washington.

    Read more from Mary Lambert

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      Book preview

      Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across - Mary Lambert

      ONE

      my body is terrifying,

      idaho is a giant shithole,

      and other wholesome stories

      How I Learned to Love

      When I was fifteen, I hated everything except for Weezer

      and maybe like two people. And cereal.

      One time a boy grabbed me in the music room

      and kissed my neck in front of everybody.

      I did not want to be kissed, but I thought I was supposed

      to want to be kissed. I did not know what to do.

      And so I laughed.

      I knew you were supposed to laugh after things like that

      The world had taught me to dress up my trauma

      in short skirts and secret bathroom crying,

      to protect the fragility of boys at all costs

      When I was five, my father molested me

      you become a strange human that way

      You cannot whip yourself awake as a child

      I should have been born a bird

      When I turned six,

      I stopped talking.

      When I was twenty-five and my name was on the radio,

      I asked people to write poems and send them to me

      Maybe because I was starved of honest humanity

      Half of the poems were about slit wrists

      I do not want to know any more

      about this brand of humanity.

      All I know of love is hunger.

      When I met you,

      I planted my heart into the heavy

      earth. I was scared,

      But you smiled back.

      Thank God I was not born a bird.

      Evelyn Is Made Up

      The little girl is a theater of shame and laughter.

      She is eating lunch in the library again,

      she tucks the desk into her ribs to feel smaller.

      The hurt is ricocheting from her mother’s thighs

      into the girl’s thighs. The mother’s hips are too big

      the mother says. The silver hope can of slimfast sits

      in the fridge, waits. The boys are cruel and

      predictable. The girl renames herself Evelyn.

      Evelyn does not cry at school, wears a ruby

      cardigan, is the star. Evelyn can run so fast, she has

      beautiful ribboned braids. She buys hot lunch

      effortlessly—not even reduced, she pays full price.

      Evelyn is made up. The girl knows this. Nothing is

      real since the incest. The girl can’t breathe through

      her nose because of the mold. The girl breathes

      loudly, it is a good joke for everyone.

      //

      I am hurting so much this winter.

      I am fucking everyone and nothing

      matters, I wore braids to an award show, I started

      wearing dark lipstick and crying in the shower

      My sheets are beautiful, I kiss everyone I meet

      The end of the world fits inside of my cocktail

      I never fixed myself, I am my own arduous endeavor

      I light myself on fire for everyone

      I am the arsonist and the lover

      All choked into one great sex bouquet

      And Evelyn is here inside me, she is magnificent

      and ordering room service like a pro

      my mother still makes me cry from her love

      & her sweet eyes & sugared compassion

      the only parts I remember of my childhood

      are lies I told myself to feel better

      Epidemic

      for Belltown

      The girl with purple hair is sitting at my bar again.

      I think she is beautiful.

      But not in a way that I want to have awesome sex with her but in a way that I want to drink chocolate martinis together and go shopping for christmas vests that have tinkly bells and even maybe polar bears with hats on them.

      She is having a full-body cry.

      I am the worst bartender, simply because I don’t know how to counsel people without crying back at them.

      She is crying about the state of women.

      I know that we come from the same rotting wood, so all I do is nod.

      Rape is not a man behind a bush with a knife, she laughs,

      It’s kissing you on the mouth like whiskey at a nice bar.

      The girl with purple hair and I are holding hands now

      I only wanted an apology. An acknowledgement of what occurred.

      Grappling as artists, as girls, as ships in bottles,

      how do we change any of it?

      I tell her I am going to write a poem.

      She says no one wants to hear a rape poem, mary

      Rape Poem

      Have you ever seen a stampede of horses?

      Do you wonder what the hooves

      look like from underneath?

      Have you tasted the blood from biting

      your own lips because you

      couldn’t say no loud enough?

      I never fought back. I didn’t punch him. I kept my

      thighs tight and closed, but once he’s inside you,

      you wish you were a streetlamp.

      A seat belt.

      A box of nails, of rust, something hard and ruined.

      You’ll wish you were a wild pony, a slick fish on a line,

      anything but a

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