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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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Richard Siken
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: February 15
Poet
New York City
New York
Better
Degree
Somber
Even
Strategy
Tones
Thing
Degrees
Strategies
Kind
Please
Suggesting
Good
Maybe
Handful
Life
Talk
Entitled
World
Hope
Afternoon
Easy
Tone

More quotes by Richard Siken

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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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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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Oh, the things we invent when we are scared and want to be rescued.
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Moonlight making crosses on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one.
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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.
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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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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.
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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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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.
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The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling.
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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.
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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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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.
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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
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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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When you have nothing to say, set something on fire.
Richard Siken
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If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand.
Richard Siken
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Do we simply stare at what is horrible and forgive it?
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'm bleeding, I'm not just making conversation.
Richard Siken