Quotes by Richard Siken

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 didnt do, because you are weak and hollow and it doesnt matter anymore.

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

What is a ghost? Something dead that seems to be alive. Something dead that doesnt know its dead.

He was pointing at the moon, but I was looking at his hand.

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.

how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days were bright red, and every time we kissed there was anotherappleto slice into pieces.Look at the light through the windowpane. That means its noon,that meanswere inconsolable.Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.These our bodies, possessed by light.Tell me well never get used to it.

“I swear, I end up feeling empty, like youve taken something out of me and I have to search my body for scars.”

“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.”

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

“You a fever I am learning to live with”

“Youre trying not to tell him you love him, and youre trying to choke down the feeling, and youre 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 youve discovered something you dont even have a name for.”

“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.”

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

“Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed.”