One Thousand Scars

By Kim Wheeler

Let me begin by painting you a vivid picture...I was sitting in my lounge when I was suddenly hit by the realisation of how crap my life had become...I reeled at the reality, my mind imagined all my physical wounds and I saw and felt the scalpel slash my hands, the back of the hand axe smash my face

One thousand scars by Kim Wheeler – Let me begin by painting you a vivid picture…I was sitting in my lounge when I was suddenly hit by the realization of how crap my life had become…I reeled at the reality, my mind imagined all my physical wounds and I saw and felt the scalpel slash my hands, the back of the hand axe smash my face, the large axe smashing into my foot and then finally, the sledge hammer smashing into my lower spine..In slow motion I began to fall on to my knees and as I did, with gaping wounds and a blood soaked body, a hole opened up in front of me and as I continued to fall, my body separated into one thousand copies of me. We silently continued to fall, all one thousand copies of me slamming in to the ground at the bottom of this dark, cold, barren shit pit. We rejoined as one. I felt my body, the dripping blood, the open wounds and I fucking screamed and I continued, to fucking scream.
Silently, I checked my new surroundings, my new home, my very own shit pit. I reached out to touch the walls, my hands still shaking and the wounds still open and painful. I looked up and I kept looking up and there in the distance was a pin prick of a light. I screamed again and again I screamed, ‘you cxxt, you fucking cxxt,’ which seemed to echo forever.
My screaming soon dissipated, only to be met with fearful realisation of exactly where I really was. I was fucked!
I stood and began to climb, three foot, four foot, five foot, ‘wow this is progress’ I said smiling at the easiness of this task, but then, I slid down, three foot, four foot, five foot, and back down onto my smashed and bleeding feet. ‘I’m not giving up’ I whispered and again I began the arduous journey towards the light. Three feet, four, five, six, seven foot and again I began to slide down, but this time the walls had glass sticking out which scythed into my already bleeding flesh. I sank to the floor and I openly wept, to no one.
I looked up again to see the dim light and again I climbed and I climbed and with each step I grew stronger. I ignored the pain. I was on a mission and I wasn’t about to let myself down, the world and its fucking family had already done that, this was my battle and I wasn’t going to lose.
Breathless and dirty I climbed out of my very own shit pit. The light was intense; it took a while to adjust to my new surroundings. I had found myself in a small brightly lit cave. One more push and I dragged my carcass out of my very own shit pit and I collapsed, breathing heavily on the dirty ground.
I screamed, ‘I fucking did it.’ I checked my wounds of congealed blood and dirt. It didn’t hurt. I unsteadily stood up and made my way to the cave entrance/exit. The light bathing my broken body felt good. I walked closer to the exit but was stopped in my tracks by an invisible screen, ‘oh bollocks, seems I still have a way to go.’
I sat on the ground dangling my feet into the vast shit pit that I recently vacated. I smiled then I closed my eyes and slept. I awoke some time later, stood up and walked out of the exit of the cave and went to work.
I made a plan, a ten year plan to heal myself; small steps at first, step one, attend a pain clinic and talk with a clinical psychologist and remove forty years of physical, mental and sexual abuses meted out in my children’s home, my foster home ,my adopted home my boarding school and then my work place. I learnt about my injuries, I learnt about my pain, I learnt how to forgive the perpetrators of so much hurt and I began to learn how to like myself.
Four years soon elapsed, I had faced the past, now alone, I must the future. I then rescued a dog, one of the best things I have ever done and over the past twenty one years I have rescued and trained six, they taught me I can be loved, they don’t find fault, they just love and I, was allowed to love them back, this, was new to me. With this new found companionship I began to feel good, walking everyday in the woods, slowly healing the wounds.
I gave up all drugs, the insidious legal and the calming illegal. I gave up drinking and going to noisy hostile pubs then taught myself how to write and now, I have written and had published eleven books. I taught myself photography and recently I have had one of my images in the Louvre, Paris which was also featured in a book. I took up the guitar; I wrote poetry to help remove the mental angst. I joined a gym and I got fit, it took longer than I had thought, but I set out to self heal and become who I wanted to be, not some angry, dangerous, lonely drug addled screaming drunk, but a peaceful content man and I have found the less I have, the happier I became. In short, there is a way out, there is always a way out, it just depends on if you want to.
I did, because I deserved better and I became that content and happier man.