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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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Richard Siken
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: February 15
Poet
New York City
New York
Remember
Together
Back
Take
Stitch
Make
Stitches
Love
Creature
Parts
Creatures

More quotes by Richard Siken

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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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We laugh & it pits the world against us.
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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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You’re falling now. You’re swimming. This is not           harmless. You are not                     breathing.
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Do we simply stare at what is horrible and forgive it?
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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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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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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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I'm bleeding, I'm not just making conversation.
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The light is no mystery, the mystery is that there is something to keep the light from passing through.
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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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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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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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The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell. Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of 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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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
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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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Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them.
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