I illustrated the poems with characters I developed. I would perform whole poems aloud to my mirror in the middle of the night. I pasted copies of my favorite poems to my closet door. I was 15 and while I didn’t logically understand half of what Siken was trying to say, my heart did. It awakened something I didn’t even have a name for. It left me sobbing and cold, like heartache, like a good love story. I went home and consumed the book in a night. To the hero’s shoulders and a gentleness that comes Nor are we forgiven, which brings us back They were from his poem “Snow and Dirty Rain”: I still remember the first line that struck me as I flipped through the pages. One day, while we ate lunch in the usual place (our English teacher’s classroom, predictably), she handed me Crush. My best friend had a sort of initiation ritual with her friend group when the time was right in the friendship, she would introduce them to Siken. I first discovered Richard Siken in my sophomore year of high school, though I didn’t so much discover him as I was gifted him. Heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you He touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your You’re in a car with a beautiful boy,Īnd you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying toĬhoke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and Ible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourselfĪ grave in the dirt, and you’re tired. And you feel like you’ve done something terr. You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves A few passages in particular became incredibly popular, mainly the last section of “You are Jeff,” the climactic poem of his collection Crush: They’re early Tumblr teen girl kryptonite. They’re angsty, dramatic, complex and tragic. If you were on Tumblr in the early 2010s, you probably saw some of his poems. Richard Siken’s poem “A Primer for the Small Weird Loves” begins this way, with an image of panic and death, punishment perceived as deserved.
“The blond boy in the red trunks is holding your head underwaterĪnd you deserve it, you do, and you know this”
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