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Richard Siken

Richard Siken Quotes

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Famous Richard Siken Quotes

“A man walks into a bar and says: Take my wife–please. So you do. You take her out into the rain and you fall in love with her and she leaves you and you’re desolate. You’re on your back in your undershirt, a broken man on an ugly bedspread, staring at the water stains on the ceiling. And you can hear the man in the apartment above you taking off his shoes. You hear the first boot hit the floor and you’re looking up, 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. And then the second boot falls. And then a third, a fourth, a fifth. A man walks into a bar and says: Take my wife–please. But you take him instead. You take him home, and you make him a cheese sandwich, and you try to get his shoes off, but he kicks you and he keeps kicking you. You swallow a bottle of sleeping pills but they don’t work. Boots continue to fall to the floor in the apartment above you. 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. A man walks into a bar, you this time, and says: Make it a double. A man walks into a bar, you this time, and says: Walk a mile in my shoes. A man walks into a convenience store, still you, saying: I only wanted something simple, something generic… But the clerk tells you to buy something or get out. 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.”

PoetryRichard SikenBoot Theory
Author:Richard Siken
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“[...] "I owe you", says "Your shoes are filling with your own damn blood, you must want something, just tell me, and it’s yours." But I can’t look at him, can hardly speak, I took the bullet for all the wrong reasons, I’d just as soon kill you myself, I say. You keep saying "I owe you, I owe…" but you say the same thing every time. Let’s not talk about it, let’s just not talk. Not because I don’t believe it, not because I want it any different, but I’m always saving and you’re always owing and I’m tired of asking to settle the debt. Don’t bother. You never mean it anyway, not really, and it only makes me that much more ashamed. There’s only one thing I want, don’t make me say it, just get me bandages, I’m bleeding, I’m not just making conversation. 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 [...]”

PoetryWishbone
Book:Crush
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