What is love?

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What is love?

What is love?

I stared down in irritation at the disgusting little body of my week old baby screaming at the top of her lungs. She had a healthy pair, I'd give her that. With each passing second, her cries rose harder, threatening to bring down the roof of the shack where we lived in with her useless father.

My hands balled into fists at my sides, my fingers digging into my palm as i resisted the urge to wrap said fingers around her throat and snuff life out of her. All through pregnancy, everyone had gushed about how much I would love her. About how her birth would bring my life meaning, and fill it with rainbow and sunshine. That the pains of the pregnancy that almost killed me would translate to immence joy and blessing and peace.

And yet here I stood...waiting for those promises to be fulfilled...

I couldn't even bring myself to love what I created.

Maybe this was it? Love? Was it this hollow feeling in my chest? Was it this disdain I felt for my child and my situation? What is love? And why was it hiding its face from me?

Yinka rushed into the room, and pushed me away from our daughter's crib rather roughly.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, you witch?!" He asked as he picked up our daughter.

Everything.

I looked at Yinka. Truly looked at him. I loved him. In all the ways a wife could possibly love her husband, I loved him. I didn't matter that he beat me. It didn't matter that he slept around...I knew he loved me.

But...is this love?

They say love is complete, and yet I felt empty. They say love heals, and yet I feel broken. I think about my mother, and realized we're one and the same. If this was love, we shared the same idea and reality of it. My father beat my mother because he loved her. Maybe Yinka does for the same reason too?

I looked at Yinka holding my baby, watched as he rocked her to sleep and gently placed her in her crib. Watched as he walked out of the room without sparing me a seond glance. I stared at my baby again, watching her sleep peacefully, and decided that I needed her to feel love.

I looked at the candle that at on the table, watched as the single flame flickered in the wind. There was no greater love than pain. I picked up the candle, smiling to myself as the wax rolled down my fingers, burning and biting in a way that felt good. I bent over and picked up the hem of my Bubu, and made the flame to kiss the cotton. I watched as the fire ignited, and I stood straight and smiled. I lifted my daughter in one hand and threw the candle into the crib with the other. I gasped as the flames licked at my skin and black moke rose from the crib and my dress into the air. I smiled.

This was love. To love is to be in constant pain. To love is to suffer. I held on to my daughter tighter as the flames climbed higher, the black smoke crawling up my nose and suffocating my brain.

Yes. This was love.

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