The Story Behind Scar Tissue & Stardust

I have been writing for more than three decades.

Some poems were written in school notebooks. Some on loose sheets of paper. Some folded into boxes. Some tucked into old files and forgotten places I had not opened in years.

For most of my life, my poetry belonged only to me.

It was not until the students in BFF Youth Network’s writing class found the courage to share their own voices that I finally felt challenged to do the same.

Watching young writers take risks with their truth made me realize I had been asking others to be brave while quietly hiding pieces of myself.

So I began the work.

I pulled out old boxes.

Old folders.

Old notebooks.

Decades of poems.

Every single one still on paper.

And then came the overwhelming task of digitizing it all—typing poem after poem into my laptop, with no particular order, no clear roadmap… only a lifetime of words staring back at me.

And somewhere in that process, I realized something:

I was not simply putting together a poetry book.

I was trying to understand what story my life had been telling all along.

I knew I needed direction.

I needed to understand what this collection was truly about before I could know what belonged in it.

And then the first phrase came:

Scar Tissue.

It came to me because I carry physical scars from years of abuse in my first marriage.

Not many.

But enough.

Enough to remind me.

Enough to make me think about the scars people can see…

And the ones they cannot.

Because if I am honest, the deepest scars were never on my skin.

They lived much deeper.

In the places grief settled.

In the places shame took root.

In the places innocence was stolen.

For a long time, scar tissue felt like what I was made of.

But then came the second word.

Stardust.

To me, stardust has always felt like something almost impossible.

Something luminous.

Something magical.

And when I looked at everything I had survived—childhood trauma, abuse, loss, grief, silence—and realized I was still here…

Still loving.

Still giving.

Still creating.

Still believing in beauty.

It felt almost as miraculous as stardust itself.

That was when I understood:

I was not only made of scars.

I was also made of what survived them.

And when I hold Scar Tissue & Stardust in my hands now, I feel something I never expected.

Relief.

Vulnerability.

Freedom.

Not the frightening kind of vulnerability…

But the kind that whispers:

Maybe someone else needs this too.

Because I know what it feels like to carry shame so heavy it convinces you that no one could possibly understand.

I know what it feels like to grieve versions of yourself you never got to become.

I know what it feels like to feel lost.

And if there is someone out there holding their own pain in silence…

I hope this book finds them.

I hope it reaches through their scar tissue…

And reminds them that they, too, are made of something stronger.

Something luminous.

Something that, against all odds…

Still looks a little like stardust.

— Jennifer Rene Wallace