How Torture Turned Into Love

Coffee Love
Love has everything to do with coffee in our household. Joe loves me through coffee as thoroughly as he loves me in all the conventional ways.
When I arise in the morning, he has prepared my Mr. Coffee so all I have to do is touch a button. He does this at 4:30 a.m. while he readies for the gym. It is, for him, a loud and clear statement of his cherishing me, as clear as a diamond ring.

I receive that gift each morning when I rise at seven. Most days in my self-centeredness I fail to appreciate the fact that all I need to do is press the Brew button. Only occasionally do I pause and marvel at the love within a simple pot of coffee. For so long has he loved me this way, I forget that love is what fills my coffee cup.

I once thought love was a verbal declaration. If a desirable man spoke it, I pursued that man to the ends of the earth just so I could hear that soul-nourishing phrase again and again.
I repeatedly failed in such pursuits.

The men I tracked hightailed it to the hills for good reason: I pursued a man long after he grew tired of saying the magic phrase, long after I ceased to be the wonderful woman who warranted worship. I think I tried to lay hands on men who wanted miracles, forgiveness of sins, fine meals out of soda crackers, and other suitably godlike acts.

Hungry for love, I was a she-wolf in search of a meal. I thought love was a compulsion to worship and have riotous sex. The words were the nourishment I craved.

It was only through numerous miserable escapades that I became willing to adjust my concept of love. When I met Joe, I learned to recognize both my humanity and his. Our love is a desire to be kind, to accept calluses and farts, to find comfort in one another’s company.
The love expressed in that morning cup of coffee has the freedom of kindness within it. I shake my head in wonder at the love in the man. Then I drink my coffee. I drink it all.



Tracking

Twilight falls on me
belly to cold ground
nose pressed to the
imprint of your foot
searching for the
scent of you.
I am in hot pursuit:

However cold grows your trail
I’ll not abandon it.
I am the shadow
which trails behind.
I shall lay hands on you.



Chris Alba (c) 2009