Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across Quotes

“the only parts I remember of my childhood
are lies I told myself to feel better”
― Mary Lambert, Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across

“Just because I evolved, doesn’t mean I am spineless.
Just because I am malleable, doesn’t mean I am undeserving”
― Mary Lambert, Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across

“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”
― Mary Lambert, Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across: Poems by Mary Lambert

“I want to watch the fat lady win
I want her to stop apologizing for being fat
I wish I could say: Hey, perfect angel cutie pie:
You don’t owe anyone shit.
Stop apologizing for who you are.
Go eat a fucking sandwich and throw your scale away
Work out if you want to, lay on the couch if you want to
No one else lives in your body
You are enough, as you are, today”
― Mary Lambert, Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across

“I remember that morning vividly
my eyes crusted from crying
Staring across from you
your cheeks smudged with campfire ash.
We smiled weakly at each other,
and I told myself we were good.
I promised I would stop drinking so much.
You believed me.
I looked over the boat at my reflection in the water.
I looked kind of happy
for someone who was drowning.”
― Mary Lambert, Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across

“Love is a mirror, a map, a lesson in unfixed gifts”
― Mary Lambert, Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across

“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 woman.

Once he’s inside you, you just kind of give up
and your eyes glaze over.
They stay that way for years”
― Mary Lambert, Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across

“All I know of love is hunger.”
― Mary Lambert, Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across

“love your body the way your mother loved your baby feet
and brother, arm wrapping shoulders, remember,
this is important:
you are worth more than who you fuck,
you are worth more than a waistline,
you are worth more than beer bottles
displayed like drunken artifacts,
you are no less valuable as a size 16 than a size 4,
you are no less valuable as a 32A than a 36C
you are worth more than any naked bod”
― Mary Lambert, Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across

“i wonder how many women
are painting themselves into movie girls
while they sleep
angling their faces alien
to themselves, an unnecessary surrender
to things that kill them,
to things that are not real

I tell myself in the mirror,
applying the second coat of mascara:
these things are not real”
― Mary Lambert, Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across

“I know sometimes you feel less than human
more like an unknown planet no one cares about
more like hot guilt
more like a catalog of trauma
mary, stop trying to die.
there is nothing better
than looking into the mirror
to discover infinite doors.
to witness your own bloom.
you are the best version of this story.
we’re all waiting for you”
― Mary Lambert, Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across

“Dear nineteen-year-old self,
I hear you whispering to that flashing black star.
yes, you are ugly in that nightgown.
you are ugly in that silver moon night,
crookedly holding a margarita.
you are as ugly as the day you were born.
as ugly as a field of tulips bursting red
as ugly as glittering snow on evergreens
as ugly as laughter.
mary, do you understand what I am saying?
you are a creation, a gift.
tell them you were born for this life.
tell them your heart is a bludgeoned castle,
tell them you’ve got room, you’ve got safe stone.
when they say that you laugh too much,
tell them that your laughter is a skeleton key.
you laugh because you’ve seen so much dying.
you laugh because living is an absurd joy.
to laugh is to be grateful for salt
for sweat, for crying. you know this.
mary, I know that the kitchen linoleum
feels like an answer to a puzzle.
I know you lay on it, chain-smoking, wishing
you were a supporting actor in someone else’s life
or at the very least, a chipping floor.
something that stays in place; something not girl.
mary, stop trying to die”
― Mary Lambert, Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across

“girls like us are hardly ever wanted, you know
we’re used up. and sad. and drunk.
and perpetually waiting by the phone for someone to pick up
and say “you did good.”

well, you did good”
― Mary Lambert, Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across

“the time has come for us to reclaim our bodies.
Our bodies deserve more than to be
war-torn and collateral, offering this
fuckdom as a pathetic means to say:
i only know how to exist when i’m wanted
girls like us are hardly ever wanted, you know
we’re used up. and sad. and drunk.
and perpetually waiting by the phone for someone to pick up and say “you did good.”
well, you did good.”
― mary lambert, Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across

“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”
― Mary Lambert, Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across

“i cry when there is no end and i cry because there is an end and i cry because you love me so well and i cry because i gave my love to other people before you and i cry because i used to cry alone, because i wanted to die, and then i cry harder because your shoulder is so soft, i cry because the sunset is so beautiful on the connecticut river, i cry because i am scared i am losing my mind, i cry because i’m on meds, or because i forgot my meds, or i’m crying for the fact i’m crying because i forgot my meds and does this mean i am actually myself, and i’m crying because i am not actually myself, or i’m crying because maybe i am myself and that doesn’t feel like enough”
― Mary Lambert, Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across