20. THE COLLECTIVE #5 (HEALING)

I've been away from my blog for a while and I'm back with more pieces to put up here. Enjoy this next piece.

#5 Healing - Nayo Jones

I had a therapist tell me once,

it was ironic how much love I gave out because I didn’t give much to myself.

She laughed,

like self-love was a sick joke.

I chuckled

and cried at home.

I had someone tell me once,

I could not love anyone else

until I learn to love myself.

This time,

I got to laugh.

This time,

The sick joke was mine, was me.

Might as well wait forever.

I remember hating myself at the age of seven,

journals filled to the brim with criticisms.

By eight, I had enough pages to stitch them into wings

to fly close enough to the sun

to see my tears, turn to steam,

felt the wax burn on my shoulders

and mold into thick skin.

I was nine when I wanted to die.

Thirteen when I finally found a solution,

figured if I cut my legs enough

gravity would let me go.

When it didn’t,

I tied a pillowcase around my neck,

twisting like the rope swings I knew so well from childhood.

I heard my heartbeat pound in my ears like a warning drum,

then fade.

I’d almost convinced myself I’d done it.

When I started writing,

I smeared my blood on every page

to remind myself that everything beautiful has a consequence.

I’d hoped to stall the clotting long enough to give myself to the craft

and let myself go.

I have died so many times.

So when I told you that loving you almost makes life worth it,

I was not joking.

When I tell you

That loving you almost makes me forget how much I hate myself,

It is not poetry.

Loving you is taking all of the love I could never give myself

and putting it to good use.

It is reminding myself that

if someone can love a dying thing this way,

can hold the Lazarus of my body and give thanks for the way it holds back –

if someone can kiss the scars

administer the pills

absorb the bad days

and wake up smiling next to me,

then I can try to breathe again.

Because self-love does not always come first.

Or second.

Or even ever.

But your love be the guardrail on the edge,

be the drawers that hide all the sharp things,

be the body that carries my collapsed frame into bed,

be the flowers you bought;

because even though they are dying too,

they still dance.

Love will not heal me,

will not wipe my slate of my body clean –

I will always be a woman of wounds,

of rope-mark neck

and melted skin.

Love will not heal me;

but it will hold my hand if I ever heal myself

and maybe teach me a joke

that I can stay alive long enough to laugh at.

I love you enough to want to love myself, too.