Camille Briski

Ghost of expression
where did you go?
Did you leave when ignored
in your own goddamn home?
...

The world is thin, hollow, and angry.
Wastes of space taking up wastes of space.
Our bottles and our cigarettes give us some kind of alluring illusion.
Throwing everything away is so much easier than all of this.
...

</>We watch people and it makes us sad
and we hear stories and they make us sad
and we become stories and that makes us sadder
and we pity ourselves for being inconsolable and non-comprehendable
...

I don't want to hear it.
excuse after excuse.
I care so much for you.
too much for you.
...

i was cold all over
it was snowing outside it was winter
and i tried to make my mind blank
and i tried to focus on my white rough skin
...

...

I don't drink coffee to
wake from
my sleep.
I'm trying to find something
...

Tired
I'm worn out
and all my color is gone.
and I don't want to do this anymore.
...

bitter as a cold morning
at a bus stop
alone
restless
...

I am not empty, or at
least, I don't feel it
I don't feel it.
But even having someone so beautiful does not
...

Always been concerning hypocrites.
Let's disregard that I am one!
But aren't they so
wrong?
...

he tells me to write about
something happy
so here you go
love
...

Can we be stainless
and not afraid of a stain?
Can we be stainful
and not afraid of the stainless?
...

and he put on his red-striped tie.
and he grabbed his worn brown wallet
and he headed to work
where he shuffled papers
...

You wait and wait and wait.
And the birds sing every morning, regardless of your mood.
And you keep telling people the same thing even though it's changed.
Then one day the birds stop singing.
...

...