Is this it?

Is this love?

I’m tired.

Beat,

Exhausted.

Loving you drained me.

It felt like work.

Work is better,

work pays.

Slavery,

that’s more like it.

Like a burden,

a heavy sack,

a cross I have to carry.

Except you weren’t a

burden.

Or a cross.

Or a sack.

And I didn’t have to carry you.

It felt so right,

yet so hard.

So heavy.

So boring

So…

Forced.

Comfortable yet itchy.

Like a disease.

But I knew the symptoms so well.

I knew the right medicine.

The right triggers.

The previous scars.

It felt like work,

Argh!

Work I was willing to continue.

_

Gloria Nyagaka is Kenyan and just completed her Bachelor's degree in Geology.

She has been a writer for six years now. Her manuscript is the biggest project she’s ever done, a modern romantic thriller, is in the hands of her literary agent. It is a book that expresses great female characters and the strength of a woman at large. She mostly campaigns against women violence and for freedom for women to choose. She also focuses on how great women have changed the world, Michelle Obama, Serena Williams, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and others. She is a swimmer, a swim coach, a Taekwondoka, hockey player, and a dancer.