Unknown Author

Despite my best efforts 

I write in my dreams

Waking at dawn

With words of broken sleep

Sitting with coffee,

Half drunk, still warm

Last thoughts fading

Every morning the same

The music of my day 

Restlessly I try to escape

Bed unmade; dishes can wait

A wishful thought

They call my name

Poetry vanquished

Who am I if I cannot be

I beg you, is there no room?

Better or worse to brighten the world 

A thought to share

Every night a better life I dream

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in The Precipice, Camille’s third contemporary poetry collection. Unknown Author reflects on the fragile persistence of the creative life — capturing the tension between daily obligation and the inner necessity to make something luminous before the world pulls attention elsewhere.