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

Richard Siken

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Richard Siken
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: February 15
Poet
New York City
New York
Sleep
Dream
Make
Things
Never
Would
Quietly

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.
Richard Siken
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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.
Richard Siken
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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
Richard Siken
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I'm bleeding, I'm not just making conversation.
Richard Siken
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Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them.
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?
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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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
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The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling.
Richard Siken
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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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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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You’re falling now. You’re swimming. This is not           harmless. You are not                     breathing.
Richard Siken
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Do we simply stare at what is horrible and forgive it?
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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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.
Richard Siken
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We laugh & it pits the world against us.
Richard Siken
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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.
Richard Siken
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I am singing now while Rome burns.
Richard Siken
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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.
Richard Siken
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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