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“Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying thinking, “I am falling to the floor crying,” but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it — you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well.”
― Richard Siken

“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, Crush

“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, Crush

“If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“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

“You go to work the next day pretending nothing happened.
Your co-workers ask
if everything's okay and you tell them
you're just tired.
And you're trying to smile. And they're trying to smile.”
― Richard Siken

“Tell me we're dead and I'll love you even more.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“How much can you change and get away with it, before you turn into someone else, before it's some kind of murder?”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“You're trying not to tell him you love him, and you're trying to choke down the feeling, and you're trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you've discovered something you don't even have a name for.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“And the gentleness that comes,
not from the absence of violence, but despite
the abundance of it.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“We pull our boots on with both hands
but we can't punch ourselves awake and all I can do
is stand on the curb and say 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, Crush

“Okay, so I’m the dragon. Big deal. You still get to be the hero.”
― Richard Siken

“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

“I clawed my way into the light but the light is just as scary. I’d rather quit. I’d rather be sad. It’s too much work.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“Let’s admit, without apology, what we do to each other.”
― Richard Siken

“Someone once told me that explaining is an admission of failure.
I'm sure you remember, I was on the phone with you, sweetheart.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“Wanna make a monster? Take the parts of yourself that make you uncomfortable — your weaknesses, bad thoughts, vanities, and hungers — and pretend they’re across the room. It’s too ugly to be human. It’s too ugly to be you. Children are afraid of the dark because they have nothing real to work with. Adults are afraid of themselves.”
― Richard Siken

“The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell. Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time.”
― Richard Siken

“You can sleep now, you said. You can sleep now. You said that.
I had a dream where you said that. Thanks for saying that.
You weren't supposed to.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“I don't really blame you for being dead but you can't have your sweater back.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“The enormity of my desire disgusts me.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“I hope it’s love. I’m trying really hard
to make it love.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“Someone is digging your grave right now.”
― Richard Siken

“I wanted to hurt you / but the victory is that I could not stomach it.”
― Richard Siken

“You are here. You are here. You're still right here.”
― Richard Siken

“I want to tell you this story without having to confess anything.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“What can you know about a person? They shift in the light. You can’t light up all sides at once.”
― Richard Siken

“Something’s not
right about what I’m doing but I’m still doing it—
living in the worst parts, ruining myself.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“I am singing now while Rome burns. We are all just trying to be holy.”
― Richard Siken