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I am singing now while Rome burns.

Richard Siken

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Richard Siken
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: February 15
Poet
New York City
New York
Rome
Singing
Burns

More quotes by Richard Siken

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I woke up in the morning and I didn’t want anything, didn’t do anything, couldn’t do it anyway, just lay there listening to the blood rush through me and it never made any sense, anything.
Richard Siken
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Who am I? I'm just a writer. I write things down. I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure, I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow glass, but that comes later.
Richard Siken
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You are playing cards with three Jeffs. One is your father, one is your brother, and the other is your current boyfriend. All of them have seen you naked and heard you talking in your sleep. Your boyfriend Jeff gets up to answer the phone. To them he is a mirror, but to you he is a room.
Richard Siken
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He could build a city. Has a certain capacity. There’s a niche in his chest where a heart would fit perfectly and he thinks if he could just maneuver one into place – well then, game over.
Richard Siken
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We laugh & it pits the world against us.
Richard Siken
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I sleep. I dream. I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly.
Richard Siken
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Do we simply stare at what is horrible and forgive it?
Richard Siken
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Oh, the things we invent when we are scared and want to be rescued.
Richard Siken
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He was pointing at the moon, but I was looking at his hand.
Richard Siken
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I’m not suggesting the world is good, that life is easy, or that any of us are entitled to better. But please, isn’t this the kind of thing you talk about in somber tones, in the afternoon, with some degree of hope and maybe even a handful of strategies?
Richard Siken
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Is that too much to expect? That I would name the stars for you? That I would take you there? The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube?
Richard Siken
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We can do anything. It’s not because our hearts are large, they’re not, it’s what we struggle with. The attempt to say Come over. Bring your friends. It’s a potluck, I’m making pork chops, I’m making those long noodles you love so much.
Richard Siken
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The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling.
Richard Siken
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Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake and dress them in warm clothes again.
Richard Siken
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Wearing your clothes or standing in the shower for over an hour, pretending that this skin is your skin, these hands your hands, these shins, these soapy flanks
Richard Siken
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I'm bleeding, I'm not just making conversation.
Richard Siken
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Moonlight making crosses on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one.
Richard Siken
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Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them.
Richard Siken
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I'm battling monsters, I'm pulling you out of the burning buildings/ and you say I'll give you anything but you never come through.
Richard Siken
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You’re falling now. You’re swimming. This is not           harmless. You are not                     breathing.
Richard Siken