Quote

I'm bleeding, I'm not just making conversation.

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
Bleeding
Conversation
Making

More quotes by 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
He was pointing at the moon, but I was looking at his hand.
Richard Siken
Image
I sleep. I dream. I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly.
Richard Siken
Image
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
Image
Do we simply stare at what is horrible and forgive it?
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
The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell. Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time.
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
When you have nothing to say, set something on fire.
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
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
Image
Moonlight making crosses on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one.
Richard Siken
Image
Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them.
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
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
Oh, the things we invent when we are scared and want to be rescued.
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
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
Image
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