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Do we simply stare at what is horrible and forgive it?

Richard Siken

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Richard Siken
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: February 15
Poet
New York City
New York
Forgive
Forgiving
Horrible
Simply
Stare
Staring

More quotes by Richard Siken

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Moonlight making crosses on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one.
Richard Siken
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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.
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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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You’re falling now. You’re swimming. This is not           harmless. You are not                     breathing.
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.
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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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I'm battling monsters, I'm pulling you out of the burning buildings/ and you say I'll give you anything but you never come through.
Richard Siken
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Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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
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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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Oh, the things we invent when we are scared and want to be rescued.
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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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