Roadmaps of Wounds.
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are stronger at the broken places.”
- Ernest Hemingway
The world broke Papa Hemingway so many damn times he put a stop to that, breaking his skull and pulping his brain with a bullet. No healing or strengthening from that breaking.
A cicatrix starts as healed skin that contracts into scars, from smooth to distorted. Did Jesus’ hands, feet, side ever heal?
Some tribes slice their members in unspeakable places, or scarify for beauty or ritual or ceremony. Raised or razed flesh can form exquisite patterns. Many cultures practice socially normative scarification called mutilation by others; we are no exception.
Girls and boys have genitalia altered into bizarre standards of beauty. Ashes are rubbed into lacerations to engender keloid scarring. Some kids have friends shoot them so they can boast of bullet wounds. Skin is pierced allowing the suspension of living human bodies from huge hooks. Subcutaneous implants, sharpened teeth, metal spikes rooted in skulls, scales, pointed ears, bifurcated tongues…everyone has their kinks.
Often by accident or result of surgery, many of us bear marks from broken places, ripped skin, broken bones, broken homes, broken trust, demolished dreams. We live on; we cover the reminders up or show them off like badges. Either way, they are earned.
Doctor Blitzer (well-named) slit both my wrists, pushed tendons aside to set broken bones, which he fastened together with plates, screws and pin. The healed incisions look like botched suicide attempts. In my work trying to help wounded people heal, I had best wear long sleeves from now on.
Sometimes we meet people who have more tortured skin than normal tissue. Something has gone horribly wrong. Many of them learn wisdom in the process, if we can bear to hear it.
Women who have given birth bear scars we would do well to honor, as much as those of warfare.
All our scars placed end to end would wrap around the world over and again. The ugly, beautiful traces of our wounds testify to mortality, regeneration. No one leaves this Earth without maps, histories of injuries. Not if they have lived.
written in response to J.D. Harms’ Wednesday prompt, 22nd of September 2021: scars.
Thanks to Zay Pareltheon.