Love's Sobriety

The Goddess of Love wants to know if you're willing to be changed by her.

The Goddess of Love sat behind an enormous mahogany desk: hair in a bun, no makeup, horn-rimmed glasses clinging to the bridge of her nose. The servants which normally attended her were noticeably absent.

She was scribbling notes in the margins of a scarlet moleskin notebook, fountain pen in one hand, half-eaten mango in the other when I let myself into her office. Her door was ajar; the room smelled faintly of papyrus, India ink and fresh jasmine.

“Got a minute?” I asked, making myself comfortable in the leather recliner across from her desk.

“No, I do not” she said, without looking up. “It’s Valentine’s Day Eve, and I am fucking busy.”

“I brought coffee” I countered. “Large, black, two sugars.”

Love glanced up, accepting my offering. “Who are you” she asked “what are you doing here, what do you want, and how the hell do you even know where here is?”

“My name’s Jack” I replied. “Jack, from Brooklyn.”

“Wait, you’re that clown that showed up at the Bar At The Edge of Nowhere and bamboozled my cousin Reality into looking the other way?” How’d your date with Destiny go?

“We’re in a situation-ship at the moment” I said. “You can’t chase her, you know. You can only curate the conditions which make outcomes inevitable.”

“Fine” Love said, slurping her coffee loudly. “That’s who you are. That doesn’t answer why you’re here, what you want, and how you knew where to find me.”

“Actually, I wasn’t looking for you,” I confessed. “I was looking for your Mom.”

Love chuckled to herself. “You sought The Divine, and you end up here, with me?”

“In all fairness” I replied, “I didn’t know I was looking for The Divine until I met her.”

Love rolled her eyes and sat forward, her chin resting in her palm. “And there it is. There’s a “her” involved. There’s always a ‘them’ involved. So what’s the ask? I have budgets to approve, Hallmark fuckery to deny, and multiple orgies in my name to attend later. Thanks for the coffee” she said “yet I’m sure you know…

“I am Love, I owe no one favors.”

“I’m not looking for a handout” I said. “I come bearing gifts.”

Love cackled. “You may be the most arrogant human alive and I have Cristiano Ronaldo on speed dial. What makes you think” Love asked “that you know what I want?”

“L=i∑​U(xi​)+i<j∑​Cij​−i∑​Si​.”

Love paused mid-sip. “What did you just say?”

“I said, I am the truest, most coherent version of myself when I’m with her.”

Love put her coffee down. “Fine. You have a baseline understanding. I’m not a mood, a reward, or a slogan. I’m a process” she said, “the process that shapes all living things.”

“Yea I got that part; the abstract the sufi poets talked about. The Divine shows up in ten thousand ways if you know where and how to look. A blade of grass or a single grain of sand can tell you everything you want to know about the Universe. But if you want to touch the face of The Divine…”

“Find your person” Love said, cutting me off. “So, you’ve touched Mom’s face; well done. That’s a claim few can make. However, according to my notes” she said, flipping through the pages of her moleskin notebook “you are currently single. What happened?”

“I don’t recall Gibran or Hafiz equating the love of your life with the love in your life at the moment. Sometimes” I said, “you can share a nervous system, even when you’re not sharing a bed.”

Love’s curiosity piqued. “I see. So you’ve been talking to sister Grief as well.”

“I’m not here to mansplain love to Love. Respectfully, you are fucking expensive. And I don’t mean flowers or chocolates or romantic getaways, at least not exclusively. Grief is the cost of love that won’t die. I know which subscriptions I’ve canceled. And I know which ones are set for auto-renew.”

“Respectfully” Love answered “you’ve been at the end of a very long rope for a very long time.”

“Does it matter?” I asked. “You are what you are willing to become when the cost of love exceeds what you have to give. Sometimes ache has to learn to hold itself.”

Love cocked her neck and made the “hmph” sound without opening her lips. “I do some of my best work when the bodies aren’t in the room” Love said proudly.

“Yea, quantum entanglement is a motherfucker.”

“So we’re doing coffee mug slogans now?” Love drawled.

“Actually my coffee mug from her says ‘lays good pipe’” I quipped, “but that’s another conversation.”

“So you can fill a mug” Love said, slurping her last sips of coffee. “Kudos? Your sociopolitical views and your kinks align. What if she became a lake?”

“Then I’d become the ocean.”

“And if she became the ocean?”

“Then I’d become the sky.”

“And,” Love asked “if she became the sky?”

“Then I’d become the Universe.”

“You sound irrational” Love chided.

“Excuse me” I said, “have you met you? You are an irrational number. You’re beautiful. You’re infinite. You’re fractal. And you don’t solve for zero. To commit to you” I said “is to commit to a process, not a solution.”

“Fine” Love said. “I accept that you didn’t come with grandiose requests. You claim to have kissed my Mom. You say you brought gifts. Was there something else besides this perfectly made cup of coffee?”

“Light roast, freshly ground” I said. “You live atop a mountain. I couldn’t help but notice your slopes are littered with corpses of those whose ambition exceeded their capacity. I’m willing to admit: the process changed me. That said,” I continued, “I’d argue you don’t have company often.”

“And I would like to watch the sun rise with you.”