Stephen Dunn Quotes

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.

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 felt -

I knew I was in danger
of being terribly understood.

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

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