A Letter to Richard Siken
To Richard Siken,
The day you fall sick, I find myself on Twitter, following an account called ‘richard siken bot’ that tweets lines from your poetry every hour.
It's not enough, but it's all I have. Because I don't know if you're ever going to write again.
I find ‘Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out’ on the internet out of nowhere when I'm 15, and it makes me feel everything I haven't felt in months. I print it out, memorizing every word and my mind goes to a different place every single time I read it. It's my little secret, a poem I refuse to share with anyone unless I trust them completely. At 17, the poem is taped to my bunk bed, a reminder that words can create something so beautiful. At 18, I still read it every time I need to feel something.
Your books arrive one afternoon, and the thrill I feel every time I look at them is unprecedented. I devour them in the next two days, and don't understand a word you mean to say.
It only makes me love you more.
You send me a poem when I'm 16, something about how nothing good ever happens at 4am. I stay up all night to prove that good things do happen at that ungodly hour, and all I do is prove myself wrong.
Your words, they've taken me everywhere: from the deepest of sorrows to the truest forms of joy.
They showed me what poetry can be, what art can be, what I can be. Maybe you changed my life in all the ways you could, and maybe I am more thankful than I can say.
Even now, I fail to put it into words.
Love,
Saachi.
The day you fall sick, I find myself on Twitter, following an account called ‘richard siken bot’ that tweets lines from your poetry every hour.
It's not enough, but it's all I have. Because I don't know if you're ever going to write again.
I find ‘Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out’ on the internet out of nowhere when I'm 15, and it makes me feel everything I haven't felt in months. I print it out, memorizing every word and my mind goes to a different place every single time I read it. It's my little secret, a poem I refuse to share with anyone unless I trust them completely. At 17, the poem is taped to my bunk bed, a reminder that words can create something so beautiful. At 18, I still read it every time I need to feel something.
Your books arrive one afternoon, and the thrill I feel every time I look at them is unprecedented. I devour them in the next two days, and don't understand a word you mean to say.
It only makes me love you more.
You send me a poem when I'm 16, something about how nothing good ever happens at 4am. I stay up all night to prove that good things do happen at that ungodly hour, and all I do is prove myself wrong.
Your words, they've taken me everywhere: from the deepest of sorrows to the truest forms of joy.
They showed me what poetry can be, what art can be, what I can be. Maybe you changed my life in all the ways you could, and maybe I am more thankful than I can say.
Even now, I fail to put it into words.
Love,
Saachi.
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