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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

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

More quotes by Richard Siken

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I swear, I end up feeling empty, like you've taken something out of me and I have to search my body for scars.
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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?
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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.
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I wouldn’t kill your pony. I’d like to believe it, anyway. I’d like to believe I wouldn’t drag you out in to the woods and leave you there, either. So far, it hasn’t come up.
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Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them.
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I sleep. I dream. I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly.
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Do we simply stare at what is horrible and forgive it?
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I'm bleeding, I'm not just making conversation.
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The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell. Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time.
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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.
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Here I am leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack, my silent night, just mash your lips against me. We are all going forward. None of us are going back.
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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
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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.
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You’re falling now. You’re swimming. This is not           harmless. You are not                     breathing.
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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Here I am in a rabbit run, here I am in a valley of pine, waiting for you to find me. I could pretend I’m speaking to everyone—assume a middle distance and transcend myself—but I’m taking to you and you know 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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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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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.
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The light is no mystery, the mystery is that there is something to keep the light from passing through.
Richard Siken