lost child

healing

"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 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 gives 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 ledge.
be the drawers that hide all
of 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 a body clean.
I will always be a
woman if wounds.
Of rope-marked neck
and melted skin.
Love will not heal me
but it will hold my hand
if I ever heal myself."

- Nayo Jones