Quote

We have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven, which brings us back to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it.

Richard Siken

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Richard Siken
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: February 15
Poet
New York City
New York
Absence
Brings
Hero
Gentleness
Violence
Forgiven
Stars
Abundance
Comes
Touched
Back
Shoulders
Despite

More quotes by Richard Siken

Image
I swear, I end up feeling empty, like you've taken something out of me and I have to search my body for scars.
Richard Siken
Image
I am singing now while Rome burns.
Richard Siken
Image
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
Image
Do we simply stare at what is horrible and forgive it?
Richard Siken
Image
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
Image
I sleep. I dream. I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly.
Richard Siken
Image
I'm bleeding, I'm not just making conversation.
Richard Siken
Image
Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them.
Richard Siken
Image
Oh, the things we invent when we are scared and want to be rescued.
Richard Siken
Image
He was pointing at the moon, but I was looking at his hand.
Richard Siken
Image
If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand.
Richard Siken
Image
When you have nothing to say, set something on fire.
Richard Siken
Image
Moonlight making crosses on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one.
Richard Siken
Image
Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake and dress them in warm clothes again.
Richard Siken
Image
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
Image
You wanted happiness, I can’t blame you for that, and maybe a mouth sounds idiotic when it blathers on about joy but tell me you love this, tell me you’re not miserable.
Richard Siken
Image
The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell. Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time.
Richard Siken
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I don't know where I end and the world begins. My best guess? Skin. It's the only actual boundary between the body and the world, between a body and any other body.
Richard Siken