Mary Lambert Quotes

i only know how to exist when i'm wanted.

the only parts I remember of my childhood are lies I told myself to feel better

Just because I evolved, doesn’t mean I am spineless. Just because I am malleable, doesn’t mean I am undeserving

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

I want every piece of me to crash into every piece of you, I swear to god that’s how they make stars.

Love is a mirror, a map, a lesson in unfixed gifts

All I know of love is hunger.

Love your own body like your mom loved your baby feet.

This is my body, and I am terrified of the space it takes up.

You are more than who you fuck

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Worst of all, some sixth graders hadn’t started wearing deodorant yet, and they really needed it.

Friends, Lavender decided, were like that improbable little stream that was going to save all their lives. They were water in the desert.

Sometimes, without meaning to, people make things worse when they jump into a situation. It can be really tricky to know the right way to help.

You don’t have to like someone to do what’s right,” Rachelle said. “Doctors don’t have to like their patients. Teachers don’t have to like their students. Waiters don’t have to like their customers.” “But it helps,” said Marisol, “when people like each other and are nice.” “Yeah,” John agreed in a faraway voice, “it does.

She’d never held so much cash in her life. It wouldn’t do her any good now. At home, Lavender could have bought enough food and water for three weeks. Out here, money was absolutely useless. In the wilderness, it didn’t matter how much money you had—or didn’t have—everyone was equal. They were all just fighting to stay alive.

Andrew continues, “The sailor in the New Haven tavern explained to me that there are a large number of deaf and dumb in your town. I can see for myself that is true.” “It has always been that way,” Nancy blurts out, expressing what I’m thinking. “At least, since Mary’s great-great-grandfather Jonathan Lambert arrived on the island.” Andrew glances at Nancy in a way that makes me realize he is the kind of person who thinks children should be seen rather than heard. Mama has commented on Nancy’s poor manners in the past, but now looks at her more sympathetically. “It is true,” Mama signs. “It is nothing unusual.

When one is so low, any movement must be upwards,” says Marie Lambert. What foolishness! You can always go lower, and lower still, and still lower. There is no bottom. She says that to get rid of me. She is sick of me. They are all sick of me. Tragedies are all right for a while: you are concerned, you are curious, you feel good. And then it gets repetitive, it doesn’t advance, it grows dreadfully boring: it is so very boring, even for me. Isabelle, Diana, Colette, Marie Lambert—they are all fed to the teeth; and Maurice.…

...Mary Lambert is singing "Love is patient, love is kind" from 1 Corinthians 13 over and over, repeating "Not crying on Sundays," and I am gone, head fully turned and staring out the car window, trying to hide the tears that are streaming down my face.

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.

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 body

Weaved a different story in my head Painted it like glitter in the swamp

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