The pessimist in me tells me I’m a narcissist too.
A drunk, just like mum.
My overactive mind develops scenarios like polaroid shots,
all the vengeance I’d take on myself
because doesn’t sympathy cover the guilt so well?
My anger is bitter and barely covered,
incisors still too sharp,
I bit my lip too hard
and lost myself in the intoxication of blood.
It’s all too much, I need my life overbright and full,
lest I think about you,
and just how closely your shadow fits mine,
how each denial is a lie
that I’ve never quite swallowed,
so regurgitate on demand,
it was never my plan to be your villain.
The road to hell paved with good intentions
and I swear that every brick was made by my hands,
these talons that top fingers which so gracefully weave the stories
into something noble.
How proud I am that you all believed it,
that I can almost see it
if I paint the lipstick shade just so.
If I hide the darkness I know so well.
No one tells you just how soft it is,
seduction in a reduction of reality,
and thick and slow like this,
it almost consumes the panic.
My backbone breaks and I imagine wings.
I fall so damn hard and hear the lilting tones of angels.
Demons were once heavenly too,
but too honest to aspire to gated entry,
anyone is welcome here.
We all have sin, it’s not a sickness,
nor a battle, or at least,
that’s what I tell myself when I stop fighting it.
Stop redacting my nature because it’s too confusing
for a simple concept like truth.
I’ve done things I swore I never would.
Took everything I could abuse.
There is no redemption for those that still love the night,
no matter how expertly we call the light.
Cara could tell you many things about herself, most of which are true but few that would make sense. Her work is often uncomfortably, brutally honest and interrogates trauma in a way which might not be completely healthy. The poetry is melancholy and angry but tells the story of evolving identity and the ever-present spectrum of mental health.
You can find her and her sadness @polar_truths on Instagram.