Nayo Jones - 'Healing'

For more Nayo, follow her:
Instagram: @poetnoire

Filmed at the 2016 BABEL Grand Slam / CUPSI Qualifier in Philadelphia PA

Nayo is also a member of The Babel Poetry Collective. For more info on them and everything they do, check out:
Instagram: @babelsback
YouTube: BabelTU

[AS-kbwm]

"Love will not heal me. But it will hold my hand if I ever heal myself."

[biancaborrego]

“loving you almost made me forgot how much i hate myself” i felt that

[biteoffacebookmom]

she’s beautiful. she isn’t just physically beauty, she has a beautiful soul

[TreeHairedGingerAle]

She's right. People keep saying that you have to love yourself first, but that isn't how all the healthy people learn. Everyone who has told me this has had safe homes and loving parents and supportive communities and lasting friendships and eager lovers, all pouring love into them for decades until loving themselves is even easier than breathing; and I know it because I can smell it on their breaths as they tell me that I *can't* be loved until *I* love me and it makes me wonder why.

Why do they tell me this when they KNOW that they themselves were loved into being long, long ago, in hundreds of little ways that I can't even imagine? And why do I nod anyway, and smile, and whip back the tears and say, 'Yeah. I know. I'm working on it.' As if affirming trust in a medicine that **BOTH** the doctor and patient know will kill me, but that neither will admit the lethality of aloud.

[MrSaqeq]

"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 breath again" Woah...

[Fatima-pnip]

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

[CoffeyBans]

I really don’t think that she knew the effect this poem would have on those who have experienced every sentence. Thank you, for putting my feelings into so clear glossy words, that I can truly show to someone “This is how I feel! And I am not alone.” 😊 Thank you.

[simplyhamy]

i keep coming back just to listen how accurate she describes the way i feel

[amoyaree]

"everything beautiful has a consequence"
so beautiful & brave

[mikaylaholyoke]

I've watched this about 50 times now

[rayandiriye]

"Your love be the drawers that hide all the sharp things."

God shes so brave. Im still crying after watching it for the 7th time.
Im shook😢😢😭😭😭

[Liliana]

“I love you, enough to want to love myself too”
I FELT THAT

[briannacroney]

when she said "love will not heal me but it will hold my hand if I ever heal myself"  & " I love you enough to want to love myself too" I felt that

[shayla]

"I have died many times" yes girl

[madewhole-evuy]

When I first watch and heard she hated herself at 7 I was like that's young.
now that I'm not depressed I realise how long I was. I remember really hating my self in 5th grade I was either 10-11. I'm 16 now.
Wish I could go back in time and just cuddle my old self and tell her that she's loved and she's precious and that everything would turn out great.

[raeburt]

She read my whole. fucking. life.

So damn beautiful.

[gizzzy]

"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."

I'm shook, this is powerful af! Thanks for sharing. 😭😭😭

[kaylasilva]

I wrote one, I named it “Corrupted”

I’ve decided to write my own eulogy
No, I’m not dead but my soul no longer lights ruefully
I’ve hated myself for so long
The thought of death started to seduce me
Please excuse me for my mind is very twisted
The thought of my soul no longer roaming this earth turned me on
I sometimes wish I never really existed
I know it sounds crucial, I’ve turned years of my life into partial moments
Trying to forget all the pain, I started to roll up all my sorrow and smoke it in vain
Thousands of times I’ve asked myself
“Why are you so violent towards yourself? Do you not see the light you bring into someone’s life?”
Maybe someday you’ll be somebody’s wife
It’s a constant war in my head fighting with fire and desire
I’ve been blinded by the flames, you can see in my pupil full of rage
With tears in my eyes I’m asking god “why? Why am I still standing on this filthy planet that filled me up with so much hate”
I never really had faith in the man who let so much shit happen to me
Until I met you
You were my fate
All my raging thoughts of wanting to hurt myself left my mind
Your love was one of a kind
That for once I believed I could actually be loved
It stunned me to know that someone could love someone like me
You became my safe place, my home
Where it was always judgement free
The light in my soul started to shine again
Loving you made me forget how much I hated myself

What y’all think?

[lethuthandomaphalala]

I watch this poem literally every 3 months 😭🥺🥺

[kaitlynzuniga]

this made me cry so hard. everything down to the very ages i went through. he made me feel like i was worth something after years of feeling inadequate