the least famous girl at the waffle house

Bram Casey

i don’t know anything / i get so cold / i’m

not universally recognisable just yet

but more than ordinary

can i put your jacket on / all my friends are

so much older than me

so much more aware / internal

so much further inside themselves

if i burned down a house in the suburbs would

you look at me like the glowing sky after the

party / if i started crying when the sun came up / would

you kiss my neck on your mother’s doorstep / would you /

i’m always so confused

do you actually like me?

you said you did but only because i said it first /

the other day lily said she saw a dead black swan wash up on

freyberg beach

if i had a house / and it was full of people / would you make them

all get the fuck out / so i could watch the sky slice itself

into soft wet silver pieces / massage my temples and sit with

my feet tucked under my ass as the morning explodes

Bram Casey is a 19-year-old Theatre student at Te Herenga Waka, and originally hails from Ōtepoti, Dunedin. He really loves Ella. Like, SO much. He is of Irish, Norwegian, and Ngāti Maniapoto descent. You can read his work in bad apple, The Free Body Problem, and an issue or two of Salient from 2025.