Quote

He was pointing at the moon, but I was looking at his hand.

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
Hand
Looking
Hands
Pointing
Moon

More quotes by 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
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
Image
I sleep. I dream. I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly.
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
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
Image
You’re falling now. You’re swimming. This is not           harmless. You are not                     breathing.
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
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 am singing now while Rome burns.
Richard Siken
Image
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
Image
I'm bleeding, I'm not just making conversation.
Richard Siken
Image
Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them.
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
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
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
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
The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling.
Richard Siken
Image
Moonlight making crosses on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one.
Richard Siken
Image
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
Image
If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand.
Richard Siken