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Sorry about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine. I couldn't get the boy to kill me, but I wore his jacket for the longest time.

Richard Siken

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Richard Siken
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: February 15
Poet
New York City
New York
Wish
Mouths
Time
Sorry
Mines
Mine
Jacket
Kill
Longest
Couldn
Jackets
Boys
Wore
Blood
Mouth

More quotes by Richard Siken

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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.
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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.
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You’re falling now. You’re swimming. This is not           harmless. You are not                     breathing.
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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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When you have nothing to say, set something on fire.
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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.
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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Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake and dress them in warm clothes again.
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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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If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand.
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He was pointing at the moon, but I was looking at his hand.
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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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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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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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The light is no mystery, the mystery is that there is something to keep the light from passing through.
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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I am singing now while Rome burns.
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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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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?
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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