Hot Girl: Thoughts on Young Womanhood

By Misha Lambert

Misha Lambert's first book of collected poetry is an intimate dive into the mind of a 22 year-old woman. The poems cover a multitude of topics from body image to mental health to sexuality to relationships with the self and the other. Though the content is a raw introspection, the delivery is often comedic and heartfelt, challenging readers with rawness and humanity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483562544

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PART 1

PROLOGUE: CALLING ALL POETS

All poets are desperate, right?

Well I certainly am

Calling all poets

Calling all wrecks

Calling all dear hearts

Calling all fakes who want so badly to be true

I don’t really care if you feel stupid or smart

Or if you’re afraid to use your pen

If you have stories in your ribs

There’s something about you I could love

We’re thirsty for higher words

We’re so damn hungry

For something that shines

I’m not the answer

But I’ll show you how I long

So maybe you won’t stop longing

All poets are desperate, right?

Well I certainly am

Let yourself feel so lonely that you read my poems

Let these poems be so unsexy that you burn this book

Let yourself detest me

So much that you inch a little closer

Picture me in the morning dark

Unpretty, slumped over, face lit like a Moon

Or picture your own self

Writing your anthology

Somewhere yummy and warm

I’m not here to tell you how to read this

But just so we’re clear:

I need to be here

And you need poetry just as much as I.

HOT GIRL

Hi. If you only think there’s one way to do beauty:

You should really go to college

Or read Maya Angelou

Or visit the Grand Canyon

Or look at a pug

Within the walls of a high school made of concrete, I was bullied

Just like every other person with an ounce of special

[Where did you like to cry?]

I snotted in the parking lot

And threw up in my car cuz

The tall boys in the basketball shorts

Would call me Hot Girl

Whining sharp bad breath on my desk whistle moan in my ear

please go to prom with me please I like your pants you have hair

on your back you’re so hot oh baby you’re so beautiful can I be

your boyfriend hot girl

If you asked my mother she would say

those fuckin idiots just said that because they saw a glimmer of exquisiteness in you too striking to deal with I’m gonna punch their guts in motherfuckers

If you asked me I’d say