Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Richard Siken
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: February 15
Poet
New York City
New York
Expect
Name
Stars
Cube
Names
Splash
Take
Cubes
Much
Melting
Would
Sugar
Like
Tongue

More quotes by 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 see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back.
Richard Siken
Image
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
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
Image
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
Image
I'm bleeding, I'm not just making conversation.
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
When you have nothing to say, set something on fire.
Richard Siken
Image
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
Image
We laugh & it pits the world against us.
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 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'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
Do we simply stare at what is horrible and forgive it?
Richard Siken
Image
Fairy tales have rules. You are a princess or you aren’t. You are pure at heart or you aren’t. If you are pure at heart, or lucky, you might catch a break.
Richard Siken
Image
I sleep. I dream. I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly.
Richard Siken
Image
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
Image
The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling.
Richard Siken
Image
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.
Richard Siken
Image
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