The Way You Should Have Always Loved Yourself
casey pleym
The sharp edged feathers and cutting liner
kills me.
It’s ferocity more than beauty
but that’s what makes it stunning,
in the truest sense of the word.
It took my breath away.
I remember the first drag performance
where I ended up doing improv on stage
and it was so fucking freeing
but I looked down at myself sadly
with my twee day dresses and faded hair,
what the fuck was I doing there amongst all that glamour and intoxicating glitter?
The air was thick with it,
embedding in my lungs like wings
waiting to take flight.
It was another three years before I caught on fire,
saw my skin as a canvas not for another
but for a new identity.
Every damn day if I wanted to.
I remember the first day I tried to leave the house
with overdrawn lips and a shimmering cleavage, it’s ridiculous
but I felt ashamed and small, I wasn’t big enough to pull this off.
How could I dare to be loud with a voice so quiet from my trauma choked tongue?
Then I watched her. Iconic, bold, unfiltered.
How to be unafraid of the weight of her earrings?
Little did I know how a leaden choker could unlock my soul.
How I could pour out a relentless kind of love with hair so perfectly wild,
how could anyone deny her?
The first time I looked in the mirror and saw hope, it was cloaked
in vicious black and harsh metallic, gothic and frantic and fucking beautiful.
I stole the ashes from my own urn and tossed them across my body,
a reminder to create art from your very bones,
sow your heartstrings into tapestries that play across your skin, tight and longing,
the way you should have always loved yourself.
about the author
This headshot shows Cara with bright pink and orange straight hair and pale blue eyes, with natural makeup and winged eyeliner. She is wearing a split cream and deep green jumper.
Cara Pleym 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 Cara and her sadness @polar_truths on Instagram.