RICHARD SIKEN / WAR OF THE FOXES
Change pronouns as necessary and tweak sentences as appropriate!
I am faithful to you, darling.
When you bang on the wall you have to remember you’re on both sides of it but go ahead, yell at yourself.
Some people don’t understand anything.
He’s easy to desire since there’s not much to him.
No one wants to know what’s in his head.
To make something beautiful should be enough. It isn’t. It should be.
You’d break your heart to make it bigger.
Will you defend yourself? From me, I mean.
I prefer to blame others, it’s easier.
All these ghosts come streaming down and I wish I had something else.
We all move forward anyway. Ripples in all directions.
What is a ghost? Something dead that seems to be alive. Something dead that doesn’t know it’s dead.
All thoughts finish themselves eventually.
Can we love nature for what it really is: predatory?
When you have nothing to say, set something on fire.
I wanted to explain myself to myself in an understandable way.
Something’s not right about what I’m doing but I’m still doing it.
The enormity of my desire disgusts me.
Look away but I’m still there.
Want something to chase you? Run.
Never finish a war without starting another.
I’ve seen your true face: the back of your head. If you were walking away, keep walking.
The fear: that nothing survives. The greater fear: that something does.
All these things and what to do with them. We carve up the world all the time.
I like dead things. They cannot hurt me.
We like things related to our survival: soup, arrows - they expand the range of the species.
People like to think war means something.
Let’s admit, without apology, what we do to each other. We know who our enemies are. We know.
There are many loves but only one war.
You will need to comfort him, or we will never be finished with this.
You cannot have an opponent if you keep saying yes.
Its roots in the ground and its branches in the air, a tree is pulled in two directions.
The boy is a bird, bad bird. He falls out of trees.
You cannot get in the way of anyone’s path to God. You can, but it does no good.
Some say God is where we put our sorrow.
In the wrong light anyone can look like a darkness.
What can you know about a person?
Difficult thing, to be scrutinized so long.
Even when I look away I am still looking.
Everyone secretly wants to collaborate with the enemy, to construct a truer version of the self.
How much can you change and get away with it, before you turn into someone else, before it’s some kind of murder?
Why build a room you can live in? Why build a shed for your fears?
There wasn’t much left but it felt like him, wild and scared.
The best part of spirituality is reverence. There are other parts. Some people like to hear the sound of their own voice.
If you don’t believe in God, then who are you talking to?
But truth doesn’t count in law, only proof.
Was I discovered or invented? Feels like I’ve always been here.
Measure yourself against the truth and not the other way around.
Perfect and completely dead.
People don’t learn anything unless they are afraid of being left behind.
Logic is boring because it works. Being unreasonable is exciting.
I am your arrival, there is no refusal, we are here, you see, together, we are already here.
This is also part of the story: how the story changes. This is something I forgot to tell you.
You might like it here. I think that you might like it here.
I tell you these things because I love you.
It’s nothing like I thought it would be and closer to what I meant.
Maybe we will wake up to the silence of shoes at the foot of the bed not going anywhere.
It reminds me of where I was going without you.
You know what it’s like to be alone: gimlets and vermicide. You know what it’s like to be alive, so forgiveness.
You asked me once, What are we made of? Well, these are the things we’re made of.
I turned my ears in all directions. I’ll live alone or in between.
Everyone needs a place. It shouldn’t be inside of someone else.
Your body told me in a dream it’s never been afraid of anything.
I live in big spaces, so I’m left alone in big spaces.
We made ourselves cold. We made ourselves snow. We smuggled ourselves into ourselves. Haunted by each other’s knowledge.
To hide somewhere is not surrender, it is trickery.
I try to guess your trajectory and end up telling my own story.
I surrender my desire to be healed.
Take it or leave it, and for the most part you take it.
Shame comes from vanity. Shame means you’re guilty, like the rest of us, but you think you’re better than we are. Maybe you are.
There is no new me, there is no old me, there’s just me, the same me, the whole time.
Don’t try to make a stronger wind, you’ll wear yourself out. Build a better sail.
You want to solve something? Get out of your own way.
What’s the difference between me and the world? Compartmentalisation.
I hope it’s love. I’m trying really hard to make it love.
I clawed my way into the light but the light is just as scary.
I’d rather quit. I’d rather be sad. It’s too much work.
I mean, maybe it’s better if my opponent wins.
What happens when I no longer want to meet you?
Nothing lasts forever: we know this.
Longing and suffering? Of course, of course. You want it to mean something.
You can disconnect it or you can try to glue it all together.
We could pull it apart, spend our whole lives pulling it apart and have no time left to do anything smart with the pieces.
The sooner you embrace it, the sooner it will leave you.
You are what you cover up.
Noise and more noise. Noise up to heaven.
One wonders why a story like this exists.
I want to give you more but not everything. You don’t need everything.
Someone has to leave first.
He was pointing at the moon but I was looking at his hand.
All this was prepared for me. All this was set in motion long ago.
I stayed as long as I could. Now look at the moon.
What does all this love amount to?
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