Do we simply stare at what is horrible and forgive it? Richard Siken More Quotes by Richard Siken More Quotes From Richard Siken 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 struggleheartlong ...you're waiting because you thought it would follow, you thought there would be some logic, perhaps, something to pull it all together but here we are in the weeds again, here we are in the bowels of the thing: your world doesn't make sense. Richard Siken weedwaitingtogether Oh, the things we invent when we are scared and want to be rescued. Richard Siken scaredwant I’ve been rereading your story. I think it’s about me in a way that might not be flattering, but that’s okay. We dream and dream of being seen as we really are and then finally someone looks at us and sees us truly and we fail to measure up. Anyway: story received, story included. You looked at me long enough to see something mysterioso under all the gruff and bluster. Thanks. Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them. Richard Siken dreamlongthinking Vanity, in a fairy tale, will make you evil. Vanity in the real world will drive you nuts. Vanity makes you say things like “I deserved a better life than this. Richard Siken vanityrealnuts 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 afternoondegreesworld 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 skinsbodyworld I swear, I end up feeling empty, like you've taken something out of me and I have to search my body for scars. Richard Siken bodytakenfeelings This is where the evening splits in half, Henry, love or death. Grab an end, pull hard, and make a wish. Richard Siken splitshalfwish Knot the tie and go to work, unknot the tie and go to sleep. I sleep. I dream. I wake. I sing. I get out the hammer and start knocking in the wooden pegs that affix the meaning to the landscape, the inner life to the body, the names to the things. I float too much to wander, like you, in the real world. I envy it but that’s the dealio—you’re a train and I’m a trainstation and when I try to guess your trajectory I end up telling my own story. Richard Siken realdreamsleep I'm bleeding, I'm not just making conversation. Richard Siken bleedingconversation The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling. Richard Siken alivebodymonsters 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 gamesheartthinking 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 clothesskinshands If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand. Richard Siken if-you-love-meyou-dont-love-meway Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us. These, our bodies, possessed by light. Tell me we'll never get used to it. Richard Siken and-lovebodylight Everything affects my poetry, every day something happens that changes me forever. I’m susceptible and plastic, thin-skinned and moody. Richard Siken moodyplasticforever For a while I thought I was the dragon. I guess I can tell you that now. And, for a while, I thought I was the princess, cotton candy pink, sitting there in my room, in the tower of the castle, young and beautiful and in love and waiting for you with confidence but the princess looks into her mirror and only sees the princess, while I’m out here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire, and getting stabbed to death. Okay, so I’m the dragon. Big deal. You still get to be the hero. You get magic gloves! A fish that talks! You get eyes like flashlights! Richard Siken princessherobeautiful 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 listeningmorningblood Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly flames everywhere. Richard Siken love-alwaysflamesdragons
