A Thousand Cuts

that a soul goes through

This is a response to Nimila the Inferno’s recent prompt for ////THE CUT////.

This week and next, I invite you to write from the very core of the wound — something ruptures, lingers, never fully closes.

Let THE CUT be at the center of it.

• What does the cut evoke?

• What does it change, reveal, hide, return?

• Where does it hurt?

• Why does it stay?

Treat these questions as quiet hints rather than rules.

Follow them if they lead somewhere true, or let them fade if something else insists on being remembered.

Part poem and part autobiographical story, the intention here is to share some of my many and very real wounds to help others undertstand how I began to heal in a way that is uplifting and informing.

A quick note that “trauma dumps” are defined as the unsolicited sharing of wounds and personal trauma. If you clicked and are reading this, recognize it is by your choice.

Content Warnings: sexual abuse, verbal abuse, religious trauma. Please use your own guidance before continuing if any of these elements are triggering for you.

A Thousand Cuts

A pristine soul
Born a little boy
Who loved to laugh,
and picked up spiders
He remembers
The red filled stems of wine glasses
a spinning penny across a coffee table
Amongst the laughter or adults
Movement and interaction meeting in flow

This young boy
Had an imagination like no other;
Forests, dirt, grass and boulders formed the seas of exploration
Christmas tree towers of tangled levels and stairwells
A cardboard jet flown by sketched control panel,
Spindly potions, vials, and test tubes
Winding tunnels and halls buried deep below the pyramids
Fascination met with the fires
Of curiosity, imagination and story

He did voices,
Mimicked commercials,
Memorized books,
Made up his own stories,
Sang as loud as he could,
He wanted to be
Chosen, Seen, Loved,
A helper and a friend to others.

But little by little,
His spark was dimmed.
Not intentionally,
But contextually,
Through others’ well meaning,
Unconscious wounds were shared freely.
Some were his own unconscious choices.
For all choices
Have consequences,
Each one, its own CUT,
Wounds given,
over a lifetime
Through the sharp blur
of a thousand shifting memories.

He fell face first off a porch and split his lip
A scar barely noticed remained.
He remembers being tied up, 1 years old
While they sewed it back together.

A praying mantis bit him
Insects went from ‘a bug’ in a song
To monsters to be feared,
Buzzing demons all along a sidewalk.
Terrifying him with stingers and pinchers.
He played inside for a long time after that.

One day
He was playing.
And started running
But didn’t make it to the bathroom.
His father yelled,
Punished him,
He learned what it is
To feel like the same thing
As the mess left on the floor

His Father used his voice often,
Unconsciously expressing wounds
Through many phrases used daily:
Shut up
Get out of the way
Go away
Move
Wounds passed on from his father before.
The intonation always the same
Like discordant notes,
a triplet played angrily.
It was a harshness
that communicated:
You are too much,
I don’t want to be near you,
I don’t love you when you act like yourself.

The boy learned:
I am only loved
By doing the things that others like.

His mother tried to protect him
From every single thing.
Valiant and always alert,
She would yell out DANGER
Well meaning,
but overbearing.
His nervous system learned to anticipate it.
the world became a dangerous place
Where dogs bite
and cats scratch,
Cars don’t look,
Strangers kidnap;
Where it is normal
For adults to yell at kids.

His Babysitters kissed him sometimes.
He liked it.
They were cute and older than him.
Only one used her tongue,
Because it had been done to her too.
Don’t tell your parents about this.
He learned to keep secrets.

Once he hid with another boy
in a closet.
They showed each other themselves.
The boy wanted to touch,
And told him after
Never tell anyone about this.
He never told anyone.
Years later in school
The boy was mean to him.
A wound reflected,
Secrets still kept.
He forgot this happened
until many years later

One night he dreamed a strange dream.
He was in another place,
With no body, ineffable.
Wine glasses were bouncing stacked in rows by the thousands,
Moving as if along conveyer belts.
The patterns and geometry were bizarre,
All was interrupted by a deafening CRASH.
He woke up screaming and crying,
And could not be consoled.

As the boy grew older
His many small cuts began to add up,
Showing themselves.
They led to more.
He became
More awkward,
More unsure of himself,
And more made fun of in middle school.
He read alone in the library during lunch.
He liked a girl that danced with him once,
but didn’t know how to talk to her after that.
Didn’t understand that friendship is the key
To all healthy relationships.
So instead he tried to let her know in other ways
Passing her in the hallway,
Weird smiles and glances in class,
One time he followed her.
She was creeped out.
She refused to dance with him when he finally asked again.
More embarrassment,
More ashamed of who he was.
Another dozen cuts made up of little rejections from peers.
Each one was its own draw of blood that said:
You are not enough.

A few more years,
Showing competence became his tool.
You must constantly prove your worth
To earn others love.
He showed off in high school,
On the piano,
He got good grades,
He made out with girls,
Then blew them off,
Kept score like a statistic.
Some of them were hurt afterwards
by his words,
Or lack of them.
His own wounds were spreading.
He became a student body officer.
He thought it would help him become more popular,
Have more friends,
But the outside does not change the inside,
And he was still a loner,
Sleeping on a couch in the dark,
Depressed with no diagnosis and no medication.

He tried to talk about this STIGMA with a parent.
There’s nothing wrong with you.
You’re fine.
He was diagnosed years later as an adult

This shame he felt throughout early years
was reinforced through church.
His elders taught him
Your body and its desires are an enemy to God.
He read pamphlets that said
Do not let others touch you,
Do not touch yourself,
He believed he was evil,
Because sometimes, he did touch himself.
He thought all the bad things that happened to him,
Were God punishing him for his sins.
A vengeful father in heaven doling consequences.
He stopped listening to himself,
and trying to hear God,
Because he thought:
I am not worthy,
And God does not speak to the unworthy.

As he grew up
Other people were happy,
Telling him:
Who to be
What to do
Who to become
For 20 years he listened to them
And OBEYED.
His wounds covered him,
Showing themselves in every thing he did.
He was a missionary,
Who still touched himself,
And begged for forgiveness by night.
He was a soldier,
Who binged with food and ran himself ragged.
He was a husband,
Who struggled to connect and reciprocate
love beyond the physical.
And He was a father
that saw himself repeating
his own father’s wounds
To his own two little boys

After thirty five years
Cuts covered him head to toe.
A thousand different small experiences,
Formulating beliefs,
Chains invisible and weightless,
All designed to limit,
And give an inner voice of doubt.
The voice that said:
Play small,
You will never be good enough,
You are off-putting to others,
Just be comfortable,
Do the minimum,
And no matter what:
Do not upset ANYBODY else,
Even if it costs your own peace,
Because you will never have any peace anyway.

But this little boy, now a man,
Did not realize
These thousand cuts
Never broke,
Nor did they tarnish,
The light
that remained hidden underneath.

Behind the wounds,
A soul remembered.
He finally felt,
And met
His true self.
And in one single moment:
These thousand cuts,
open for years,
Began to heal,
One by one,
Through his remembering,
Through his feeling,
Through his awareness,
And the forgiveness of others.
He could give peace because
He could forgive himself.

The cuts may sting
And shape,
But they do not define
That which I AM,
And what I came here to be.
I am NOT the cuts.
But the cuts are me.
They are my wounds.
And my healing.
They are where the light enters.
And becomes
My own light to share.
A light much brighter,
Because it was woven
through darkness.

A pristine soul
Received a thousand cuts
So he could learn
what it means

To heal

and be healed.