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.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the complexities of perception and intimacy in relationships, revealing how vulnerability often leads to deeper understanding.
In this quote, Richard Siken delves into the intricacies of human connection and self-perception. He expresses the idea that we all strive to be truly seen and understood by others, yet fear that our true selves might not meet the expectations we have of ourselves or that others hold. The act of getting close to someone often reveals hidden depths, and sometimes, this closeness leads to new realizations about both oneself and the other person. Ultimately, it is a reflection on the beauty and challenge of intimacy, where vulnerability plays a critical role in genuine connection.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the nature of relationships during a counseling session.
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.
I'm saying your name in the grocery store, I'm saying your name on the bridge at dawn. Your name like an animal covered with frost, your name like a music that's been transposed, a suit of fur, a coat of mud, a kick in the pants, a lungful of glass, the sails in wind and the slap of waves on the hull.
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.
Everything affects my poetry, every day something happens that changes me forever. I’m susceptible and plastic, thin-skinned and moody.
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.
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 get older, and people start passing away. And so if you're lucky - my mom died very young, for instance, and I have friends who died very young - but the point being that, I think if you're awake, you know you're going to pass on. And that the real treasure in life is the long term - relationships that you really value.
I ran away from home when I was a senior in high school, and it came out of all the conflicts that happen between parents and their children who can't communicate.
Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over? Because, if it is to spite her, I should think - but you know best - that might be better and more independently done by caring nothing for her words. And if it is to gain her over, I should think - but you know best - she was not worth gaining over.
Choosing nonviolence does not mean that one will never get angry or become upset with others, including the ones we love.
"Don't you want to join us?" I was recently asked by an acquaintance when he ran across me alone after midnight in a coffeehouse that was already almost deserted. "No, I don't," I said.
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
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