Canvas of Scars - Book Launch Day

Canvas of Scars, my first poetry, prose, and art collection is now officially live! (You can also find it on Goodreads here, and Storygraph there.)

I’m equally excited and scared to share this thing. It took me a few years to work up the courage because of how raw and open it is. It’s a collection of art, poetry, and prose I made and wrote over the course of several years, but not necessarily for a book. It was all just for me in the beginning.

I used various forms of creativity to help me get through some of my worst nights with PTSD and psychotic episodes, and the art especially was just too dark for me to share anywhere. I ended up posting some of it off and on, but it wasn’t made to be shown to anyone. It was for when the words wouldn’t come but the feelings were too intense to not get out of me. It was a healthy way of venting.

I’ve never been a part of the art community online because I was always intimidated by it. I’d tried over the years but without success, so I hid my art away again for fear that no one would like it or care much about it. And then I decided to share my poetry I’d been writing since the pandemic, again to cope with PTSD and other symptoms. I didn’t like just sharing it by itself because it felt like it needed something else for it to work for me. That’s when I looked over my art again, and I realized exactly what I wanted to do.

This book is about an emotional journey, so combining my art and writing felt right. I wanted this book to be 100% me, right down to the design and everything, so I did as much by hand that I was able (headers, titles, art, doodles). I ended up with something that was much bigger than I originally planned, and I’m so glad I didn’t release my poetry back when I first considered it, before this whole project was expanded on.

To be honest, sharing this is terrifying. I’ve never shared my art in this way before, and all of the content is so personal and very revealing. It’s about what I survived, and it contains poetry and prose written during episodes of dissociation and psychosis, so I wasn’t entirely in the present when they were initially written. A couple of the drawings even have characters with top surgery scars to show a bit more of myself and my identity.

A lot of the trauma I survived happened before I came out as a trans masculine person. I genuinely hope that, while often very dark and gut wrenching, this book can be a sense of solidarity for trans masculine people who may have experienced certain traumas, like sexual traumas. I never see spaces for trans mascs or masc nonbinary people who are AFAB to talk about sexual trauma, which we often experience when we’re still living socially as our birth sex. It’s isolating and it’s a shame so many trans mascs may feel alone or unable to talk about this stuff without being misgendered.

That’s not the entirety of the book; sexual trauma is only a part of it. I just needed to get it all out, and it’s freeing to do it this way. I’m claiming control over my narrative. I’m saying that this actually happened, I’m allowed to tell my story despite others gaslighting me into silence, and it’s okay. This collection is so much more than just a poetry book.

You can get it right now here. It will be up in other places in a month or two, as wide distribution takes a lot of time (I started the process for wide distribution yesterday, but it’ll take weeks to get a proof and then longer to get it up in other book stores through my other distributor, but I’m doing all I can to make it happen as quickly as possible).

Here’s one of the stream of consciousness pieces I spoke first, and then wrote later after performing it on YouTube (it contains mentions of mature subjects, but there’s nothing explicit):

I truly hope people can appreciate this weird and unsettling bit of creativity. It means so much to me, and it’s much more special than anything else I’ve published. Mental health awareness is so important to me, and I want to add to that conversation in a way that is real, raw, and honest. With that said, please remember to support people who are in the thick of it, who are not yet in recovery. Please support the people who are still struggling. Too often, I only see support for people who are palatable with their suffering, or who are inspirational stories.

Don’t forget those of us still trying our best but aren’t quite there yet. Check on your chronically depressed loved ones. Be kind to each other. Give people space to heal, even if that healing is messy and imperfect. Give loved ones space to make mistakes during their journey.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you’re doing okay yourself 💜

Kofi | Itchio | My Books