richardsikendaily

[richardsikendaily]

My boyfriend did not die in 1991. I told a lie and it turned into a fact, forever repeated in my official biography. He died on Christmas Day, 1990, when his family disconnected the mechanical breathing machine. He was a composer in the school of music. We were working on a piece for voice and strings. I liked writing the words under the whole notes, hyphenating them to make them last. I liked sitting on the bed in his apartment, writing on the sheet music—bigger paper, thicker, how it sounded when it fell to the floor when we got tired. It was winter break, friends in town, we hopped from party to party, catching up but separately. It was late, the night was clear, the roads were empty. The four of them were sober, the driver in the other car was not. I was a few miles away, in a bar, waiting. When the bar closed, I left him an angry message for standing me up. A few hours later, a friend called and told me. He suggested I break into the apartment and start removing things before the family arrived. For several minutes I didn’t understand, then—evidence. He hadn’t told his family and it didn’t seem right to tell them now, to suggest that they didn’t really know him. I drove in the darkness between the accident and dawn. I climbed through the window. I couldn’t figure which things looked suspicious and which things would be missed. I was sloppy, rushed. I grabbed the wrong sheet music. It was a piece that had already been performed. A few days after Christmas there was a memorial. I sat in the back. As part of his speech, his father mentioned the missing music and made an appeal for its return. I couldn’t give it back. On New Year’s Eve, in a black velvet jacket, at a party in the lobby of a downtown hotel, with a drink in each hand—one for him, one for me—I kept asking where he was, if anyone had seen him. I had his passport in my back pocket. I shouldn’t have taken that either. It was the only picture of him I could find.

Richard Siken, COVER STORY / DEAD BOYFRIEND POEM

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Portrait of Fryderyk in Shifting Light, Richard Siken

[text ID: What can you know about a person? They shift in the light. / You can’t light up all sides at once. / Add a second light and you get a second darkness, it’s only fair.]

[richardsikendaily]

i have not been able to stop thinking about this siken interview about crush for like. weeks now

[richardsikendaily]

- Richard Siken, "Wishbone"

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here i am leaving you clues

[richardsikendaily]

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, cropped viewing of Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld (1861) / Richard Siken, War of the Foxes (2015)

[richardsikendaily]

anyways

[richardsikendaily]

Detail of the Fire

by Richard Siken

A man with a bandage is in the middle of something. Everyone understands this. Everyone wants a battlefield.

Red. And a little more red.

Accidents never happen when the room is empty. Everyone understands this. Everyone needs a place.

People like to think war means something.

What can you learn from your opponent? More than you think. Who will master this love? Love might be the wrong word.

Let’s admit, without apology, what we do to each other. We know who our enemies are. We know.

#thinking about this today #detail of the fire #book: war of the foxes

[richardsikendaily]

x / Landscape With Fruit Rot And Millipede, Richard Siken

#Landscape With Fruit Rot And Millipede

[richardsikendaily]

[text ID: You said if people wanted to change the world, they would. You said most people like it this way. Too bad for them, I say, I want something else. /end ID]

#the long and short of it #richard siken #spork

[richardsikendaily]

[text ID: Negative space is silly. When you bang on the wall you have to remember you’re on both sides of it already but go ahead, yell at yourself. /end ID]

THE WAY THE LIGHT REFLECTS | Richard Siken

#the way the light reflects #richard siken #book: war of the foxes

[richardsikendaily]

[text ID: A dead man at our feet staring up at us like we’re something interesting / You though if you handed over your body he’d do something interesting /end ID]

Richard Siken, Wishbone // A Primer for the Small Weird Loves

#crush #wishbone #a primer for the small weird loves #richard siken

[richardsikendaily]

[text ID: 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. /end ID]

#black telephone #richard siken #spork

[richardsikendaily]

[text ID: She used to believe that words not only meant something but they helped. I think this is the real problem. Sometimes words don’t help. /end ID]

#meet me at the page where #richard siken #spork

[richardsikendaily]

[text ID: A lover is standing too close to focus on. Leave me blurry and fall toward me with your entire body. /end ID]

#snow and dirty rain #crush #richard siken

[richardsikendaily]

[text ID: I’m a romantic, an absurdist. I am bad with facts and I get confused. I’m a hostile witness. I didn’t want to see this, talk about this.  /end ID]

#black telephone #spork #richard siken

[richardsikendaily]

[text ID: The constant development of thing after thing, cause and effect, the inevitable always waiting for you, up ahead, in the distance, as you inch reluctantly forward. /end ID]

#broken unbroken #richard siken #spork