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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
Stare
Staring
Forgive
Forgiving
Horrible
Simply

More quotes by Richard Siken

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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
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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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The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling.
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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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The light is no mystery, the mystery is that there is something to keep the light from passing through.
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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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When you have nothing to say, set something on fire.
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.
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.
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Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them.
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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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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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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You’re falling now. You’re swimming. This is not           harmless. You are not                     breathing.
Richard Siken
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We laugh & it pits the world against us.
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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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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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
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Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake and dress them in warm clothes again.
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