Hello to all.

It occurs to me of late that, of all the struggles that peeps at HopeScope have grappled with over the years, self-harm is one of the most - perhaps the single most - intractable.  We have had a fair mount of success in managing it, or even sometimes eradicating it, over the years, but there is no magic bullet.  Harnessing or banishing self-harm seems to have more to do with the harmer coming to understand, accept, and love themselves than trying to purge some resident demon.  The resultant control over one's environment that self-knowledge and self-respect can afford seem to, almost by default, have a medicinal effect on self-harm.

Some little while ago, I had written a verse on the subject of this healing - this transformation - that occurs when self-harm succumbs to self-regard, often with an assist from a consistently supportive environment.  I had placed it on the forums, but I thought I'd share it here as well.

TC

Scars to Scrollwork

White hot from hurt,
glowing as raw bars of ore
they have found their way to new hands,
patient, warm, and skilled.

Gaudy sparks rejoice, mirrored in kind eyes,
as soothing tongs and hammers
draw seething souls to length and width,
turning pain against itself,
rendering beauty from fear and
quenching it in a loving bath borne of tears.

Hope's tender balm becalms the newly crafted forms
as they are embellished by temperate smiths,
scars wrought into singular and stunning flourishes,
flashing ebony vines and blossoms on silver palettes.

Indelible faith makes a fine grip,
as pearlescent as tomorrow's dreams,
and adorned by gilded guards
to shield the loving hands that shall christen and release
these gentle swords,
these new victors over darkness,
these children who have suffered
and been molded anew by hands and hearts
to whom their beauty has never been a mystery.