Vanity, in a fairy tale, will make you evil. Vanity in the real world will drive you nuts. Vanity makes you say things like โI deserved a better life than this.
Richard SikenFor 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 Iโm out here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire, and getting stabbed to death. Okay, so Iโm the dragon. Big deal. You still get to be the hero. You get magic gloves! A fish that talks! You get eyes like flashlights!
Richard SikenWe have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven, which brings us back to the heroโs shoulders and the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it.
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 Siken