Richard Siken
But there’s this space between us, always this space between us. — Richard Siken, “Love from a Distance,” Spork Issue 12..
Tag: Richard Siken
Richard Siken
You do this, you do. You take the things you loveand tear them apartor you pin them down with your body and pretend they’re yours. — Richard Siken, from “A Primer for the Small Weird Loves,” Crush. (Yale University Press April 11, 2005)
Richard Siken
Oh, the body—its hungers, needs, and limitations. You look at somebody and you realize that they’re in there, inside there, somewhere, and how will you ever reach them, understand them? — Richard Siken, from “Love From a Distance,” Spork issue 1.2
Richard Siken
If you love me, you don’t love me in a way I understand. — Richard Siken, from “Wishbone,” Crush. (Yale University Press April 11, 2005)
Richard Siken
I cut off my head and threw it in the sky. It turnedinto birds. I called it thinking. — Richard Siken, from “Landscape with Fruit Rot and Millipede,” War of the Foxes. (Copper Canyon Press, 2015)
Richard Siken
Lillian Gish Goes to Hell But she has been there before, has a suitein fact, where she can swan and collapseon a series of fainting couches: velveteen,plush, gem-colored. In 1913, during theproduction of A Good Little Devil, Lilliancollapsed from anemia. She took delight insuffering for art. Although not a religiousman, Sartre was fascinated by sufferingas… Continue reading Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Dirty Valentine There are so many things I’m not allowed to tell you. I touch myself, I dream.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. The musicians start the overture while I hide behind the… Continue reading Richard Siken
Richard Siken
Imagine a room,a sudden glow. Here is my hand, my heart,my throat, my wrist. Here are the illuminatedcities at the center of me, and here is the centerof me, which is a lake, which is a well that wecan drink from, but I can’t go through with it.I just don’t want to die anymore. —… Continue reading Richard Siken
Richard Siken
He wants to be tenderand merciful. That sounds overly valorous.Sounds like penance. And his hands?His hands keep turning into birds andflying away from him. Him being you.Yes. Do you love yourself? I don’t have toanswer that. It should matter. — Richard Siken, “Unfinished Duet,” Crush. (Yale University Press April 11, 2005)
Richard Siken
Personally, I’m a mess of conflicting impulses—I’m independent and greedy and I also want to belong and share and be a part of the whole. I doubt that I’m the only one who feels this way. It’s the core of monster making, actually. Wanna make a monster? Take the parts of yourself that make you… Continue reading Richard Siken
The Vale of Soul-Making 