Crush Richard Siken Quotes

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.

We have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven, which brings us back to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it.

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.

If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand.

I'm battling monsters, I'm pulling you out of the burning buildings/ and you say I'll give you anything but you never come through.

A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river                     but then he’s still left with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away                                                                         but then he’s still left with his hands.

Tell me we're dead and I'll love you even more.

Actually, you said Love, for you, is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s terrifying. No one will ever want to sleep with you.

Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed.

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?

You’re falling now. You’re swimming. This is not           harmless. You are not                     breathing.

You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back.

Oh, the things we invent when we are scared and want to be rescued.

I swear, I end up feeling empty, like you've taken something out of me and I have to search my body for scars.

Hello, darling. Sorry about that. Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known. You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back.

You wanted happiness, I can’t blame you for that, and maybe a mouth sounds idiotic when it blathers on about joy but tell me you love this, tell me you’re not miserable.

And the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it.

Moonlight making crosses on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one.

All night I streched my arms across him, rivers of blood, the dark woods, singing with all my skin and bone ''Please keep him safe. Let him lay his head on my chest and we will be like sailors, swimming in the sound of it, dashed to pieces.'' Makes a cathedral, him pressing against me, his lips at my neck, and yes, I do believe his mouth is heaven, his kisses falling over me like stars.

The blond boy in the red trunks is holding your head underwater because he is trying to kill you, and you deserve it, you do, and you know this, and you are ready to die in this swimming pool because you wanted to touch his hands and lips and this means your life is over anyway. You’re in eighth grade. You know these things. You know how to ride a dirt bike, and you know how to do long division, and you know that a boy who likes boys is a dead boy, unless he keeps his mouth shut, which is what you didn't do, because you are weak and hollow and it doesn't matter anymore.

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.

The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling.

with this bullet lodged in my chest, covered with your name, I will turn myself into a gun, because it’s all I have, because I’m hungry and hollow and just want something to call my own. I’ll be your slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue and final resting, walking around with this bullet inside me ‘cause I couldn’t make you love me and I’m tired of pulling your teeth.

The light is no mystery, the mystery is that there is something to keep the light from passing through.

The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling, and they’re only a few steps behind you, finding the flaw, the poor weld, the place where we weren’t stitched up quite right, the place they could almost slip right into through if the skin wasn’t trying to keep them out, to keep them here, on the other side of the theater where the curtain keeps rising. I crawled out the window and ran into the woods. I had to make up all the words myself. The way they taste, the way they sound in the air. I passed through the narrow gate, stumbled in, stumbled around for a while, and stumbled back out. I made this place for you. A place for to love me. If this isn’t a kingdom then I don’t know what is.

You wanted to think of yourself as someone who did these kinds of things.                  You wanted to be in love                              and he happened to get in the way.

Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake                                                                                 and dress them in warm clothes again.           How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running until they forget that they are horses.                     It’s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,           it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,                               how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple                                                                                                                         to slice into pieces. Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means           we're inconsolable.                                                             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.

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.

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

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

You just wanted to prove there was one safe place, just one safe place where you could love him. You have not found that place yet.

we are at the crossroads, my little outlaw, and this is the map of my heart, the landscape after cruelty

History repeats itself. Someone says this. History throws its shadow over beginning, over the desktop, over the sock drawer with its socks, its hidden letters. history is the little man in a brown suit trying to define a room he is outside of, I know history. There are many names in history... but none of them are ours.

We clutch our bellies and roll on the floor... When I say this, it should mean laughter, not poison.

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

I don't really blame you for being dead but you can't have your sweater back.

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.

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.

We're shooting the scene where I swallow your heart and you make me spit it up again. I swallow your heart and it crawls right out of my mouth. You swallow my heart and flee, but I want it back now, baby. I want it back.

I take off my hands and I give them to you but you don’t want them, so I take them back and put them on the wrong way, the wrong wrists.

I know history. There are many names in history but none of them are ours.

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.

There is an empty space next to you in the backseat of the station wagon. Make it the shape of everything you need. Now say hello.

Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently we have had our difficulties and there are many things I want to ask you.

In the dream I don't tell anyone, you put your head in my lap.

And no one can ever figure out what you want, and you won't tell them, and you realize the person who loves you isn't the one you thought it would be, and you don't trust him to love you in a way you would enjoy. And the boy who loves you the wrong way is filthy. And the boy who loves you in the wrong way keeps weakening. You thought if you handed over your body he'd do something interesting.

I want to tell you this story without having to confess anything.

We still groped for each other on the backstairs or in parked cars                                                                                                                                                       as the road around us grew glossy with ice and our breath softened the view through the glass                     already laced with frost, but more frequently I was finding myself sleepless, and he was running out of                                                                                                                                                                           lullabies. But damn if there isn’t anything sexier                                                             than a slender boy with a handgun,                                                                                                                                   a fast car, a bottle of pills.

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!

Verse. Chorus. Verse. I'm sorry. We know how it works. The world is no longer mysterious.

Here is the cake, and here is the fork, and here's the desire to put it inside us, and then the question behind every question: What happens next?

You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you.

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.

Cut me open and the light streams out. Stitch me up and the light keeps streaming out between the stitches

You said I could have anything I wanted, but I just couldn’t say it out loud.

I’ll give you my heart to make a place for it to happen, evidence of a love that transcends hunger. 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?

I never liked that ending either. More love streaming out the wrong way, and I don't want to be the kind that says the wrong way. But it doesn't work, these erasures, this constant refolding of the pleats. There were some nice parts, sure, all lemondrop and mellonball, laughing in silk pajamas and the grain of sugar on the toast, love love or whatever, take a number. I'm sorry it's such a lousy story.

Anything past the horizon is invisible, it can only be imagined. You want to see the future but you only see the sky.

Did he find that one last tender place to sink his teeth in?

Imagine this: You’re driving. The sky’s bright. You look great. In a word, in a phrase, it’s a movie, you’re the star. so smile for the camera, it’s your big scene, you know your lines. I’m the director. I’m in a helicopter. I have a megaphone and you play along, because you want to die for love, you always have. Imagine this: You’re pulling the car over. Somebody’s waiting. You’re going to die in your best friend’s arms. And you play along because it’s funny, because it’s written down, you’ve memorized it, it’s all you know. I say the phrases that keep it all going, and everybody plays along. Imagine: Someone’s pulling a gun, and you’re jumping into the middle of it. You didn’t think you’d feel this way. There’s a gun in your hand. It feels hot. It feels oily. I’m the director and i’m screaming at you, I’m waving my arms in the sky, and everyone’s watching, everyone’s curious, everyone’s holding their breath. 'Planet of Love

You just wanted to prove that there was one safe place, just one safe place where you could love him. You have not found that place yet.

You are a fever I am learning to live with.

There’s smashed glass glittering everywhere like stars. It’s a Western, Henry. It’s a downright shoot-em-up. We’ve made a graveyard out of the bone white afternoon. It’s another wrong-man-dies scenario, and we keep doing it Henry, keep saying until we get it right … but we always win and we never quit. See, we’ve won again, 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 lie 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.

You’re going to die in your best friend’s arms. And you play along because it’s funny, because it’s written down, you’ve memorized it, it’s all you know. I say the phrases that keep it all going, and everybody plays along.

Tell me, the poet says, the lie I need to feel safe, and tell me in your own voice, so I believe you. One more tale to stay alive.

I couldn’t get the boy to kill me, but I wore his jacket for the longest time.

I want to tell you this story without having to confess anything, without having to say that I ran out into the street to prove something, that he didn't love me, that I wanted to be possessed, thrown over, that I wanted to have the wounds nailed shut. I want to tell you this story without having to be in it: Max in the wrong clothes. Max at the party, drunk again. Max in the kitchen, in refrigerator Ught, his hands around the neck of a beer. Tell me we're dead and I'll love you even more. I'm surprised that I say it with feeling. There's a thing in my stomach about this. A simple thing. The last rung.

Do we simply stare at what is horrible and forgive it?

I wanted to hurt you but the victory is that I could not stomach it.

Here is the part where everyone was happy all the time and we were all forgiven, even though we didn't deserve it.

He had green eyes, so I wanted to sleep with him. Green eyes flecked with yellow, dried leaves on the surface of a pool. You could drown in those eyes, I said. The fact of his pulse, the way he pulled his body in, out of shyness or shame or a desire, not to disturb the air around him. Everyone could see the way his muscles worked, the way we look like animals, his skin barely keeping him inside. I wanted to take him home, and rough him up and get my hands inside him, drive my body into his like a crash test car. I wanted to be wanted, and he was very beautiful, kissed with his eyes closed, and only felt good while moving. You could drown in those eyes, I said, so it's summer, so it's suicide, so we're helpless in sleep and struggling at the bottom of the pool.

The boy's no good. The boy is just no good. / but he takes you in his arms and pushes your flesh around to see if you could ever be ugly to him.

and you play along, because you want to die for love, you always have.

Makes a cathedral, him pressing against me, his lips at my neck, and yes, I do believe his mouth is heaven, his kisses falling over me like stars.

In these dreams it's always you: the boy in the sweatshirt, the boy on the bridge, the boy who always keeps me from jumping off the bridge. Oh, the things we invent when we are scared and want to be rescued.

These are the dreams we should be having. I shouldn’t have to clean them up like this.

The stranger says there are no more couches and he will have to sleep in your bed. You try to warn him, you tell him you will want to get inside him, and ruin him, but he doesn't listen. You do this, you do. You take the things you love and tear them apart or you pin them down with your body and pretend they're yours. So, you kiss him, and he doesn't move, he doesn't pull away, and you keep on kissing him. And he hasn't moved, he's frozen, and you've kissed him, and he'll never forgive you, and maybe now he'll leave you alone.

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

I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly.

It starts with bloodshed, always bloodshed, always the same running from something larger than yourself story

The dawn was breaking the bones of your heart like twigs.

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

You want a better story. Who wouldn’t?

Sorry about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine.

Lie down on the bed, you’re all I ever wanted and worth dying for too... but I think I’d rather keep the bullet.

You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that 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.

There are many names in history, but none of them are ours

There's a black dog and there's a white dog, depends on which you feed, depends on which damn dog you live with.

I swear, I end up feeling empty, like you've taken something out of me, and I have to search my body for the scars, thinking Did he find that one last tender place to sink his teeth in?

The man on top of you is teaching you how to hate, sees you as a piece of real estate, just another fallow field lying underneath him like a sacrifice. He’s turning your back into a table so he doesn’t have to eat off the floor, so he can get comfortable, pressing against you until he fits, until he’s made a place for himself inside you. The clock ticks from five to six. Kissing degenerates into biting. So you get a kidney punch, a little blood in your urine. It isn’t over yet, it’s just begun.

You could love this boy with all your heart.

They are the same and they are not the same. They are the same and they hate each other for it.

he knows you, and he's talking to you, but you're in pain and you cannot understand him.

We are all just trying to be holy.

(...) Love, for you is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s terrifying.

we laugh and it pits the world against us, we laugh, and we've got nothing left to lose

You wonder what he's thinking when he shivers like that.

He was not dead yet, not exactly— parts of him were dead already, certainly other parts were still only waiting for something to happen, something grand, but it isn't always about me, he keeps saying, though he's talking about the only heart he knows— 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.

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. And I can't eat, can't sleep, can't sit still or fix things

The stranger says there are no more couches and he will have to sleep in your bed. You try to warn him, you tell him you will want to get inside him, and ruin him, but he doesn’t listen. You do this, you do. You take the things you love and tear them apart or you pin them down with your body and pretend they’re yours. So, you kiss him, and he doesn’t move, he doesn’t pull away, and you keep on kissing him. And he hasn’t moved, he’s frozen, and you’ve kissed him, and he’ll never forgive you, and maybe now he’ll leave you alone.