a girl on a bench

Winner of the Yale Series Of Younger Poets, Richard Siken’s Crush, rips skin from flesh to bare souls bounded to love and its tortures.

Some of my favorite poems from Crush:

Scheherazade (pg.3)
Seaside Improvisation (pg.8)
The Torn-Up Road (pg.9)
Saying Your Names (pg.33)

Lines I love from Crush:

"...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 theatre where the curtain keeps rising."
- Snow and Dirty Rain, pages 60-61

#17. of You Are Jeff , pages 50-58
(you'll have to read the book to find out how great this one is for yourself 😉)

Learn more or buy Crush here.