171 Quotes by Richard Siken

There are so many things I'm not allowed to tell you.

The lawn drowned, the sky on fire,the gold light falling backwards through the glassof every room. I'll give you my heart to make a placefor it to happen, evidence of a love that transcends hunger.Is that too much to expect? That I would name the starsfor you? That I would take you there?

I crawled out the window and ran into the woods.I had to make up all the words myself. The waythey taste, the way they sound in the air. I passedthrough the narrow gate, stumbled in, stumbledaround for awhile, and stumbled back out. I madethis place for you. A place for you to love me.If this isn't the kingdom then I don't know what is.

This is where the evening splits in half, Henry, love or death. Grab an end, pull hard, and make a wish.

I wanted to explain myself to myself in an understandable way. I gave shape to my fears and made excuses. I varied my velocities, watched myselves sleep. Something's not right about what I'm doing but I'm still doing it-- living in the worst parts, ruining myself. My inner life is a sheet of black glass. If I fell through the floor I would keep falling. The enormity of my desire disgusts me.

But damn if there isn't anything sexier than a slender boy with a handgun, a fast car, a bottle of pills.

Do we simply stare at what is horrible and forgive it?Here is the river, and here is the box, and here arethe monsters we put in the box to test our strengthagainst. Here is the cake, and here is the fork, and here'sthe desire to put it inside us, and then the questionbehind every question: What happens next?

Here we are, at the place where I get to beg for it. Where I get to say ‘Please, for just one night, will you lay down next to me? We can leave our clothes on, we can stay all buttoned up?’ But we both know how it goes – I say I want you inside me and you hold my head underwater. I say I want you inside me and you split me open with a knife.

Paint ghosts over everything, the sadness of everything. We made ourselves cold. We made ourselves snow. We smuggled ourselves into ourselves. Haunted by each other’s knowledge. To hide somewhere is not surrender, it is trickery. All day the snow falls down, all night the snow. I try to guess your trajectory and end up telling my own story. We left footprints in the slush of ourselves, getting out of there.