Stephen Dunn

“I've tried to become someone else for a while, only to discover that he, too, was me.”

“I'll say I love you, Which will lead, of course, to disappointment, but those words unsaid poison every next moment. I will try to disappoint you better than anyone else has.”

“I’ll always deny that I kissed her. I was just whispering into her mouth.”

“Connubial Because with alarming accuracy she’d been identifying patterns I was unaware of—this tic, that tendency, like the way I've mastered the language of intimacy in order to conceal how...”

“I will try to disappoint you better than anyone else has.”

“Bring to me, it said, continual proof / you've been alive.”

“I think because my parents died in their early 50s, mid 50s, I always thought I would die young. And that's been both a useful thing and I suspect something that's haunted me a little bit.”