#MY SILENT NIGHT JUST MASH YOUR LIPS AGAINST ME WE ARE ALL GOING FORWARD NONE OF US ARE GOING BACK

[tinogiehd]

https://www.tumblr.com/georgieeehd/720685581286457345?source=share

WHAT WIP

bodyswap :]

[tomgrcg]

I am singing now while Rome burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack, my silent night, just mash your lips against me. We are all going forward. None of us are going back.” snow and dirty rain / Richard Siken

[shortnotsweet]

“I had a dream about you. We were in the gold room

where everyone finally gets what they want.

You said Tell me about your books, your visions made

of flesh and light and I said This is the Moon. This is

the Sun. Let me name the stars for you. Let me take you

there. The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar

cube…We were in the gold room where everyone

finally gets what they want, so I said What do you

want, sweetheart? and you said Kiss me. Here I am

leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome

burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack,

my silent night, just mash your lips against me.

We are all going forward. None of us are going back.”

― Richard Siken

[svnnyd4ys]

INSIDE THE MYSTERIOUS CUBE x RICHARD SIKEN (except it's just Crush)

some of his quotes that are literally just Inside the Mysterious Cube core (feels very Bubbamiah centric but we love them) (never encourage me to do anything, because I'll never shut up) (would've included his other anthology, War of the Foxes, but Crush fits it so much better anways)

"Do you know how it ends? Do you feel lucky? Do you want to go home now? There's a bottle of whisky in the trunk of the Chevy and a dead man at our feet staring up at us like we're something interesting. This is where the evening splits in half, Henry, love or death."

"You saved my life, he says. I owe you, I owe you everything. You don't, I say, you don't owe me squat, let's just get going, let's just get gone, but he's relentless, keeps saying I owe you, says Your shoes are filling with your own damn blood, you must want something, just tell me and it's yours. But I can't look at him, can hardly speak: I took the bullet for all the wrong reasons." (this feels soooo pre!ITMC idk) (the way i can hear Sam saying "your shoes are filling with your own damn blood")

both from Wishbone in Crush!! more under the cut (not exaggerating, there's a lot, so good luck)

"Imagine my legs crossed, my hair combed, the shine of my boots in the slatted light. I'm thinking My plant, his chair, the ashtray that we bought together. I'm thinking This is where we live."

"We've read the back of the book, we know what's going to happen. The fields burned, the land destroyed, the lovers left broken in the brown dirt. And then it's gone."

"Goodbye. Goodbye. No more tears. I would like to see you all in Heaven." (i can hear AJ the president saying this)

"We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack, my silent night, just mash your lips against me. We are all going forwards. None of us are going back."

(snow and dirty rain)

"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."

(straw house, straw dog)

"You're by the side of the road. You're by the side of the road, and you're doing all the talking while I stare at my shoes. They're nice shoes, brown and comfortable, and I like your voice. In the dream, I don't tell anyone, I'm afraid to wake you up."

(i had a dream about you)

"Tonight, by the freeway, a man eating fruit pie with a buckknife carves the likeness of his lover's face into the motel wall. I like him and I want to be like him, my hands no longer an afterthought."

"History is a little man in a brown suit trying to define a room he is outside of. I know history. There are many names in history but none of them are ours."

"It wasn't until we were well past the middle of it that we realised the old dull pain, whose stitched wrists and clammy fingers, far from being subverted, had only slipped underneath us, freshly scrubbed."

"His wounds healed, the skin a bit thicker than before, scars like train tracks on his arms and on his body, underneath his shirt."

(LITTLE BEAST (underrated fave))

"Tell me we're dead and I'll love you even more. I'm surprised I say it with feeling."

"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."

(the torn-up road)

"I will keep watch. I will water the yard. Knot the tie and go to work. Unknot the tie and go to sleep. I sleep. I dream. I make up things I will never say. I say them very quietly."

(meanwhile)

"You have never experienced anything this ferocious or intentional with another person."

"and he's singing to you, even though you don't know who he is."

"The heart is monologing about hesitation and fulfilment while behind the red brocade the heart is drowning."

"This is the essence of love and failure. You see what I mean, but you're happy anyway, and that's okay, it's a love story after all, a lasting love, a wonderful adventure with lots of action,"

"The train station blue, your lips blue, hands cold and the blue wind. Or a horse, your favourite horse raised up out of the mud and galloping galloping always towards you."

"You just wanted to prove there was one safe place, just one safe place where you could love him."

(you are jeff)

"You are going to die in your best friend's arms. And you play along because it's funny, because it's written down, you've memorised it, it's all you know."

(planet of love)

"Kissing degenerates into biting. So you get a kidney punch, a little blood in your urine. It isn't over yet, it's just begun."

(a primer for small weird loves)

[malaisequotes]

“Here I am leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack, my silent night, just mash your lips against me. We are all going forward. None of us are going back.”

Snow and Dirty Rain by Richard Siken

[whatsupwalnut]

I am singing now while Rome burns.

We are all just trying to be holy.

My applejack, my silent night, just mash your lips against me.

We are all going forward. None of us are going back.

[baladric]

richard siken's snow and dirty rain rly is the perfect poem. it has everything you could ever need: words, beats, those long noodles you love so much, uhh tenderness,, crying,,, we are all just trying to be holy my applejack my silent night just mash your lips against me we are all going forward none of us are going back

[starcunning]

the gold room

i had a dream about you.

we were in the gold room where everyone finally gets what they want.

...

we were in the gold room where everyone finally gets what they want, so i said what do you want, sweetheart?

and you said kiss me.

here i am, leaving you clues.

i am singing now while garlemald burns.

we are all just trying to be holy.

my applejack, my silent night, just mash your lips against me.

we are all going forward.

none of us are going back.

[herlostlover]

I had a dream about you. We were in the gold room where everyone finally gets what they want. You said Tell me about your books, your visions made of flesh and light and I said This is the Moon. This is the Sun. Let me name the stars for you. Let me take you there. The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube…We were in the gold room where everyone finally gets what they want, so I said What do you want, sweetheart? and you said Kiss me. Here I am leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack, my silent night, just mash your lips against me. We are all going forward. None of us are going back.

[nowsakshee]

We were in the gold room

where everyone finally gets what they want.

You said Tell me about your books, your visions made

of flesh and light and I said This is the Moon. This is

the Sun. Let me name the stars for you. Let me take you

there. The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar

cube... We were in the gold room where everyone

finally gets what they want, so I said What do you

want, sweetheart? and you said Kiss me. Here I am

leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome

burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack,

my silent night, just mash your lips against me.

We are all going forward. None of us are going back.

[tinogiehd]

every couple hours the gold room poem comes back into my head and I can’t stop thinking about it. I had a dream about you we were in the gold room where everyone finally gets what they want. how do I recover from that

I HAD A DREAM ABOUT YOU. WE WERE IN THE GOLD ROOM WHERE EVERYONE FINALLY GETS WHAT THEY WANT. YOU SAID TELL ME ABOUT YOU BOOKS, YOUR VISIONS MADE OF FLESH AND LIGHT and i said This is the Moon, this is the Sun. Let me name the stars for you. let me take you there. The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube… We were in the gold room where everyone finally gets what they want, so I said What do you want, sweetheart? and you said Kiss me. Here I am leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My apple jack, my silent night, just mash your lips against me. We are all going forward. None of us are going back.

[icarian-carrion]

"He was going through it." Tisha shrugs, as if that explains it all, as if those words didn't also rip her to shreds. As if I swallowed crushed ice, pretending it was glass and there should be just one safe place in the world and he's still left with his hands didn't turn her into a sobbing mess the first time she read them, don't still reduce her to tears in quiet, difficult moments in her apartment. She chose that book because it's sad, but because it's beautiful too, and brings tears that feel good, big wracking sobs that feel like her chest being loosened and washed out.

"But, like... he said this thing, I don't know, it was on twitter or something. Someone told him that their pain wasn't beautiful, and he said, no, but your survival is. I think that kind of sums it up. It's all the sadness and the hollowness and the being left to live, but..." Tisha leans over and flips some pages for him, carelessly close considering how he had flinched when she tried to check his temperature, and turns to the end of the book.

"Here." She points at Snow and Dirty Rain. "We have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven, which brings us back to the hero's shoulders and the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it." She reads, and then points lower down. "I am singing now while Rome burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack, my silent night, just mash your lips against me. We are all going forward. None of us are going back." She smiles faintly. "I really like that. I like that it's at the end.

@worldofsenelfy

“I knew it!” Okay, maybe this wasn't a reason to yell and point a finger at Sunny as if she had committed some kind of crime, but Ilyas had known it. He knew it had been her. She didn't even bother to deny it. Oh, he would've been so mad if he wasn't.. Well, not really drunk or anything. Slightly intoxicated. And it was a book they were talking about. Ilyas never really could get very mad over a book, unless the plot sucked or the ending was disappointing. Or someone tore out a page and left you guessing.  

Oh, speaking of crimes..  

He huffed and he puffed and he drank. And he frowned at all these little details she remembered about this book. Most of them didn't matter. Ilyas could not even remember a writer if he tried, this girl just recited poetry from the top of her head. He vaguely recalled this had happened before..? “How do you remember all that?” Maybe he'd asked her that before too. He wasn't sure.

His gaze dropped to the book. He couldn't recite anything from it. His memory didn't work like that. “There was something about.. a straw house burning? I didn't like that one.” That one hit way too close to home. He should've stopped reading it after the first part, but something about it had drawn in his eyes. And now it was hard to let go.  

And so, he just took another drink.  

His fingers let go of that bottle so he could flip through pages. “Hmm,” he hums, “A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river. But then he's still left with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away. But then he's still left with his hands.” He gives Sunny a look. “No offense, but this is kinda depressing.” And true. Painfully true.  

@icarian-carrion

[mycannibalromance]

read snow and dirty rain again if anyone needs me i will be sustaining brain damage

[gocatboygo]

oh god if youre trying to get over a guy dont read richard siken dont read richard siken

[th3-n3w-fac3-of-failur3]

quotes from crush by richard siken that put my brain on spin cycle

"tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us" (1)

"there's a part in the movie/ where you can see right through the acting" (4)

"and you know that a boy who likes boys is a dead boy, unless/ he keeps his mouth shut, which is what you/ didn't do." (22)

"things happen all the time, things happen every minute/ that have nothing to do with us." (24)

"you do this, you do. you take the things you love/ and tear them apart." (24)

"i said kiss me here and here and here/ and you did." (28)

"your jeep. your teeth. the coffee that you bought me./ the sandwich cut in half on the plate." (30)

literally all of the poem saying your names

"because you want to die for love/ you always have" (39)

"he cannot get the bullet out, he thinks, he can't, and then, he does./ a little piece of grit to build a pearl around" (49)

also all of you are jeff 24

"it's simple. it isn't over, it's just begun. it's green. it's still green" (59)

"we have not touched the stars/ nor are we forgiven" (60)

"evidence of a love that transcends hunger/ is that too much to expect? that i would name the stars for you?" (60)

"we are all just trying to be holy. my applejack/ my silent night, just mash your lips against me/ we are all going forward. none of us are going back" (62)

"i made this place for you. a place for you to love me" (62)

^^ the entire last poem is so 🥵🥵🥵

[siken-archive]

Snow and Dirty Rain

Close your eyes. A lover is standing too close to focus on. Leave me blurry and fall toward me with your entire body. Lie under the covers, pretending to sleep, while I'm in the other room. Imagine my legs crossed, my hair combed, the shine of my boots in the slatted light. I'm thinking My plant, his chair, the ashtray that we bought together. I'm thinking This is where we live. When we were little we made houses out of cardboard boxes. We can do anything. It's not because our hearts are large, they're not, it's what we struggle with. The attempt to say Come over. Bring your friends. It's a potluck, I'm making pork chops, I'm making those long noodles you love so much. My dragonfly, my black-eyed fire, the knives in the kitchen are singing for blood, but we are the crossroads, my little outlaw, and this is the map of my heart, the landscape after cruelty which is, of course, a garden, which is a tenderness, which is a room, a lover saying Hold me tight, it's getting cold. We have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven, which brings us back to the hero's shoulders and the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it. The lawn drowned, the sky on fire, the gold light falling backward through the glass of every room. I'll give you my heart to make a place for it to happen, evidence of a love that transcends hunger. Is that too much to expect? That I would name the stars for you? That I would take you there? The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube? We've read the back of the book, we know what's going to happen. The fields burned, the land destroyed, the lovers left broken in the brown dirt. And then it's gone. Makes you sad. All your friends are gone. Goodbye Goodbye. No more tears. I would like to meet you all in Heaven. But there's a litany of dreams that happens somewhere in the middle. Moonlight spilling on the bathroom floor. A page of the book where we transcend the story of our lives, past the taco stands and record stores. Moonlight making crosses on your body, and me putting my mouth on every one. We have been very brave, we have wanted to know the worst, wanted the curtain to be lifted from our eyes. This dream going on with all of us in it. Penciling in the bighearted slob. Penciling in his outstretched arms. Our father who art in Heaven. Our father who art buried in the yard. Someone is digging your grave right now. Someone is drawing a bath to wash you clean, he said, so think of the wind, so happy, so warm. It's a fairy tale, the story underneath the story, sliding down the polished halls, lightning here and gone. We make these ridiculous idols so we can pray to what's behind them, but what happens after we get up the ladder? Do we simply stare at what's horrible and forgive it? Here is the river, and here is the box, and here are the monsters we put in the box to test our strength against. Here is the cake, and here is the fork, and here's the desire to put it inside us, and then the question behind every question: What happens next? The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I'm alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling, and they're only a few steps behind you, finding the flaw, the poor weld, the place where we weren't stitched up quite right, the place they could almost slip right through if the skin wasn't trying to keep them out, to keep them here, on the other side of the theater where the curtain keeps rising. I crawled out the window and ran into the woods. I had to make up all the words myself. The way they taste, the way they sound in the air. I passed through the narrow gate, stumbled in, stumbled around for a while, and stumbled back out. I made this place for you. A place for you to love me. If this isn't a kingdom then I don't know what is. So how would you catalog it? Dawn in the fields? Snow and dirty rain? Light brought in in buckets? I was trying to describe the kingdom, but the letters kept smudging as I wrote them: the hunter's heart, the hunter's mouth, the trees and the trees and the space between the trees, swimming in gold. The words frozen. The creatures frozen. The plum sauce leaking out of the bag. Explaining will get us nowhere. I was away, I don't know where, lying on the floor, pretending I was dead. I wanted to hurt you but the victory is that I could not stomach it. We have swallowed him up, they said. It's beautiful. It really is. I had a dream about you. We were in the gold room where everyone finally gets what they want. You said Tell me about your books, your visions made of flesh and light and I said This is the Moon. This is the Sun. Let me name the stars for you. Let me take you there. The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube... We were in the gold room where everyone finally gets what they want, so I said What do you want, sweetheart? and you said Kiss me. Here I am leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack, my silent night, just mash your lips against me. We are all going forward. None of us are going back.