Renting the dream

The roof caved in last night

Even though I had paid

Paid for your service

Paid for your dream

I barely know your name

The one I paid the way for

Your dream is my nightmare

And still I pay

Is this all we aspire to be?

Not much of a dream society

A very imperial way of being

This divisive device called rent

So many dreams are lost 

Bubbles are built to burst

That is their nature

Not human nature

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Renting the dream reflects on the cruelty of housing as extraction — showing how the promise of security is distorted by systems that turn shelter into profit and leave one person’s dream resting on another’s instability.

This poem is available as a contemporary poetry print on textured recycled card.