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Cover art for June 2013

Song

June 2013

Mary Lambert

Winter Tangerine: Issue Two, English

Lyrics

Pick up to six lines to make a card.

My dad was a blue shell of a bad man. Mom talks about his brain surgery, says it like this: it changed him. Says it slow, says it deliberate, nodding to agree with herself. She is slow like this because we both know what happens after: clusters of dirt in my hair, rotting meals, the bright lights, empty, empty, empty, and the pit. Fills my name with a bunch of songs I don’t know, don’t care to kno
We both know what happens after: bright lights, my pitless song, awaking chorus, nod, swallow the room like salt. Ten thousand people singing my stupid name. My body isn’t mine, it is my father’s, it is Father’s Day, my fault, over and over. Mom says it slow and deliberate: your body is an arena. Ten thousand people in the pit tonight, they are all fathers, ready to empty me, you don’t understand.