Quote

I sleep. I dream. I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly.

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
Dream
Make
Things
Never
Would
Quietly
Sleep

More quotes by 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
Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake and dress them in warm clothes again.
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
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
You’re falling now. You’re swimming. This is not           harmless. You are not                     breathing.
Richard Siken
Image
When you have nothing to say, set something on fire.
Richard Siken
Image
I'm bleeding, I'm not just making conversation.
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
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
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
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
Oh, the things we invent when we are scared and want to be rescued.
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
The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling.
Richard Siken
Image
If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand.
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
We laugh & it pits the world against us.
Richard Siken
Image
Moonlight making crosses on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one.
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
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