are we breathing, are we breathing, are we wasting out breath.

crowd surf off a cliff. land out on the ice. crowd surf off a cliff. float toward the beach. if you find me, hide me, I don't know where I've been. when you phone me, tell me everything I did. if I'm sorry you lost me you'd better make it quick 'cause this call costs a fortune and it's late where you live. rather give the world away than wake up lonely. everywhere in every way, I see you with me.

- Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton, Crowd Surf Off a Cliff.

it's okay, I don't even cry. all I think about is a memory.

a little thunder's good, thought maybe you would. but it's okay. we all feel left out. sometime's growing up, it can get you down. I give you something that no one's gonna give you - my sleeping skin and my heart deep down in you. I'll never tell you, but you're my little scar. goodbye's are hard and they're hard and they're hard. maybe when I die, I get to be a car. driving in the night, lighting up the dark. something in your voice, sparks a little hope. I wait up for that noise. your voice becomes my home.

- Land of Talk, It's Okay.

Scheherazade.

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.
There, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we'll never get used to it.

- Richard Siken, Scheherazade

but damn if there isn't anything sexier than a slender boy with a handgun, a fast car.

3

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

7

What would you like? I'd like my money's worth.
Trying explaining a life bundled with episodes of this -
swallowing mud, swallowing glass, the smell of blood
on the first four knuckles.
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.

- Richard Siken, excerpts from Little Beast.

I want to tell you this story without having to be in it.

4

I want to tell you this story without having to say that I ran out into the street
to prove something, that he chased after me
and threw me into the gravel.
And he knew it wasn't going to be okay, and he told me
it wasn't going to be okay.
And he wouldn't kiss me, but he covered my body with his body
and held me down until I promised not to run back out into the street again.
But the minutes don't stop. The prater of going nowhere
going nowhere.

5

His shoulder blots out the stars but the minutes don't stop. He covers my body
with his body but the minutes
don't stop. The smell of him mixed with creosote, exhaust -
There, on the ground, slipping through the minutes,
trying to notch them. Like taking the same picture over and over, the spaces
in between sealed up -
Knocked hard enough to make the record skip
and change its music, setting the melody on its
forward course again, circling and circling the center hole in the flat back disk.
And words, little words,
words too small for any hope or promise, not really soothing
but soothing nonetheless.

- Richard Siken, The Torn-Up Road.

You want a better story. Who wouldn't?

Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly
flames everywhere.
I can already tell you think I'm the dragon
that would be so like me, but I'm not. I'm not the dragon.
I'm not the princess either.
Who am I? I'm just a writer. I write things down.
I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure,
I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow
glass, but that comes later.
And the part where I push you
flat up against the wall and every part of your body rubs against the bricks,
shut up
I'm getting to it.
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.

- Richard Siken, Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out

okay, if you're so great, you do it - here's the pencil, make it work...

We were inside the train car when I started to cry. You were crying too,
smiling and crying in way that made me
even more hysterical. You said I could have anything I wanted, but I
just couldn't say it out loud.
Actually, you 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.
Okay, if you're so great, you do it -
here's the pencil, make it work...
If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. If the window
is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing
over water.
Build me a city and call it Jerusalem. Build me another and call it
Jerusalem.

- Richard Siken, Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out.

you are a fever I am learning to live with.

1
I watched TV. I had a Coke at the bar. I had four dreams in a row
where you were burned, about to burn, or still on fire.
I watched TV. I had a Coke at the bar. I had four Cokes,
four dreams in a row.

Here you are in the straw house, feeding the straw dog. Here you are
in the wrong house, feeding the wrong dog. I had a Coke with ice.
I had four dreams on TV. You have a cold cold smile.
You were burned, you were about to burn, you're still on fire.

Here you are in the straw house, feeding ice to the dog, and you wanted
an adventure, so I said Have an adventure.
The straw about to burn, the straw on fire. Here you are on the TV,
saying Watch me, just watch me.

2
Four dreams in a row, four dreams in a row, four dreams in a row,
fall down right there. I wanted to fall down right there but I knew
you wouldn't catch me because you're dead. I swallowed crushed ice
pretending it was glass and you're dead. Ashes to ashes.

You wanted to be cremated so we cremated you and you wanted an adventure
so I ran and I knew you wouldn't catch me.
You are a fever I am learning to live with, and everything is happening
at the wrong end of a very long tunnel.

3
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 and I wake up and I
wake up and you're still dead, you're under the table, you're still feeding
the damn dog, you're cutting the room in half.
Whatever. Feed him whatever. Burn the straw house down.

4
I don't really blame you for being dead but you can't have your sweater back.
So, I said, now that we have our dead, what are we going to do with them?
There's a black dog and there's a whiet dog, depends on which you feed,
depends on which damn dog you live with.

5
Here we are
in the wrong tunnel, burn O burn, but it's cold, I have clothes
all over my body, and it's raining, it wasn't supposed to. And there's snow
on the TV, a landscape full of snow, falling from the fire-colored sky.

But thanks, thanks for calling it the blue sky
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.

- Richard Siken, Straw House, Straw Dog.