Scars & Healing

PROSE AND POETRY

Virtue Book Publishers

CATHERINE WANJIRU

Scars & Healing

ISBN: 978 – 2480 –90 – 9

Catherine Wanjiru ©2021

All rights reserved.

This book is protected under copyright laws. The book may not be copied or reprinted for commercial gain of profit. The use of short quotations or occasional page copying for personal or group study is permitted and encouraged. If you would like permission to use

material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact kinyanjuicatherine888@gmail.com

Contact: 254 702 922 330

Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

Published in Kenya by: Virtue Book Publishers info@virtuebooks.co.ke www.virtuebooks.co.ke

First Edition: June 2021

Dedication

To my wonderful parents; Speranza Gitiri & Stephen Kinyanjui,

for opening their facucets of love and wisdom and pouring into me and believing in me.

For anyone who has a scar

Some of our deepest scars, Become our most significant stories

Table of Contents

Author’s note 7

Scars 9

Assault 23

Broken relationships 69

Healing 95

Growth 161

Loving 171

AUTHOR’S NOTE

If you ask me about survival, some days I will turn into a chatterbox and you will not be able to stop the river of words from my mouth. I will tell you about the times that survival came as a surprise because I didn’t think I would or I didn’t want to, and when it was a confirmation of what I already knew I would achieve. I will tell you about the days I was glad I survived and the one’s I wished for the opposite. On such days, I will sit with a pen in hand and count how much it cost me to be able to say, I survived even if it was just as a whisper. I will tell you about assault, depression, failed relationships, failed plans, rejection, bouts of anger, battle with guilt and shame, suicidal thoughts, and others.

Other days you won’t get anything out of me. Even though there is nothing to hide, the stories are still very personal. They made me who I am and that, whether you see it or not, it was and still is one grand achievement. This person that I am today was once a dream that seemed impossible. She was once a rough sketch because all I knew about her was that she was fearless. I knew this woman was out here waiting for me to catch up by not stuffing

Scars & Healing

bandages on my wounds and cursing whenever the blood leaked through and instead appear naked as I was. She was waiting for me to finally hold a pen and let the scars bleed until they couldn’t anymore and speak for themselves.

She is the reason why I replayed the scene of assault countless times to understand it and heal from it. She is the reason why I poked my wounds over and over to get rid of anything that she doesn’t embody. She is the reason why I kept going back to the past to cut the ropes that were tying me to it. She is the reason why I kept wiping the glasses to clear the fog to see her even though each time I did it, I left with a deep cut and why I wiped tears from my eyes over and over even if it looked like I was paving the way for more. She is the reason why I still revisit my past whenever I need a cheer to keep moving.

I know survival like my name. I don’t wish to take any more hits to prove that I still have it in me to survive, but if they do come, I know that I will hit back or dodge them and survive. I believe in the power of words to help people make sense of experiences, be encouraged, and heal. This book is my attempt of doing so. I have covered sexual assault, failed relationships, healing, and love.

1|SCARS

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What’s your story?

You don’t have to wear my shoes Or follow the roads that I took

As an attempt of understanding me, Or what my life has been like

Every story is different and significant

If I ask you what your story is, perhaps you will see me as an enemy or one of those who never let go of the past and run for the hills; that I can make you look back at a land that many

people say you should erase completely, dig up the skeletons you buried and have been burying for a long time ago, spread them on the ground and look for the right joints until they form a comprehensible story.

Perhaps you will stop everything, sit upright, call me heaven sent and narrate it back to back because no one has ever shown interest in why you are the way you are and you have been waiting for such a moment for eternity.

Perhaps you will jump into defensive mode immediately seeking to know my motives because the last time someone heard your story, they stopped calling you by your real name and used your character in the story instead and recruited more people into it. Or they added bullets to it, dragged it through mud, twisted it, and used it against you.

Perhaps you will say that it is irrelevant because the last time you narrated it, or tried to, the listener didn’t pay as much attention. Or they listened and said it didn’t fit in all the boxes of a good story because it did not involve surviving the most horrific acts like jumping from burning buildings, extreme poverty and feeding on wild