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.
Richard SikenKnot the tie and go to work, unknot the tie and go to sleep. I sleep. I dream. I wake. I sing. I get out the hammer and start knocking in the wooden pegs that affix the meaning to the landscape, the inner life to the body, the names to the things. I float too much to wander, like you, in the real world. I envy it but thatโs the dealioโyouโre a train and Iโm a trainstation and when I try to guess your trajectory I end up telling my own story.
Richard SikenEventually 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: youโre falling to the floor crying thinking, โI am falling to the floor crying,โ but thereโs an element of the ridiculous to it โ you knew it would happen and, even worse, while youโre on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didnโt paint it very well.
Richard Siken