All I Have To Give You Is My Love And My Body

There’s divine grace, divine laws, the divinity, divine guidance, divine justice. Shit, lots of floating divines out there trying to capture in a word that which cannot be explained, only understood. Only sensed. Only known once you’ve been there.

So for mere mortals like us, it means that when you told me you loved me, I truly believed again. In it all — in life, in joy, in happiness, karma, fate, kismet… Shit, the fucking Tao. Everything.

We all do, don’t we? We hear that from that person and our heart leaps. Angels don’t just descend around us, they start singing, then doing cartwheels, then doing cartwheels naked. While still singing. And it makes perfect sense, these angels cavorting around us.

This feeling that you just gave me. It’s better than drugs, better than booze, better then sex.

Except it is sex. Because that’s what love is, it is an angel, disguised as lust. Endorphins come pouring in and nothing else matters – fucking nothing – but being inside you, filling you, taking you, fucking you, being you – riding the pony for as long as it lasts. Fuck the cost.

Your every twitch, every moan, drives me harder, searching for that brief second, maybe millisecond, when we are the same person. When you are inside me and I am inside you. When we slip the surly bonds of birth and touch the face of God.

And it’s sex everywhere, right? Sex in the morning, sex at noon, sex in the car in a Bronx parking lot. Sex on the Acela from Boston. Sex on my desk. Sex in the Japanese Gardens. On Staten fucking Island. Trashing hotel rooms and furniture. Scattered clothes, lost panties.

Jesus, you gasp, collapsing onto the bed, unable to say anything more.

Love as a broken Hallelujah? Who wrote that shit? No one has ever had it like we do. No one ever will. It’s just us against the world, baby.

And it makes sense to you – all of it. How we only have two things we can truly give to someone else – our bodies and our love.

We all search for it. From the moment we are born, we search. It is the only single gift we ever truly want and need. With it, we can conquer the world. Without it, we are doomed.

Oh baby, we can be heroes, me and you.

Ah, but the world has a way of challenging this, doesn’t it? It’s like the world gets jealous of what you have, and wants to maybe test you a bit…See if that bond you share can be weakened, maybe even broken.

And it’s not just the world – not just those out there. It becomes less a magical mystery ride and a little doubt creeps in. Where are we going with this? Is this it? Is this forever?

And you begin to wonder, begin to think (admit it) that maybe there’s something – someone – better out there. Better looking, a better fuck, more money, younger, older… Something, right?

But babe, we have to hold on, you think, you plead – at first to them, then to yourself.

Yeah, but you can be mean, and I, I drink all the time, angel.

And right in the middle of this, you look away from her. And you see the door. It’s right there. Close, actually. And you could take it. Just walk through it.

On one side is freedom, however you define it. Maybe it’s a beer. Maybe it’s the girl from 7D. Maybe it’s the guy you knew from way back when who’s suddenly available now. The guy you always wondered about.

The other is her… or him, and all their known faults and annoyances and the same exact body. Every single day.

The door doesn’t lie. The angels are tired of singing. They’ve gone to bed. No help.

So what will you do, what will you both do?

Babe, I’m scared, you say to the dark.

And once finally said, it can’t be unsaid, can’t be unfelt.

But now, the angels stir again. Well, the ones that couldn’t sleep do at least.

And the divine knowledge that this is how it’s supposed to be hits you. You’re supposed to be scared, every step of the way. You can’t map this out alone. You can only do it together. Is she the elusive one we’re all supposed to be searching for? The mythical Neo of love, as it were?

You no longer care. You only know that you don’t want to live life without her.

And who the fuck knows what lies ahead, anyway. And it’s gonna rain, sure as shit, on your life together. And you’re both gonna get really wet and get a lot of parts of it wrong. Way wrong.

You know this, so you get up and slowly walk to the door. You touch the handle on the door…

…and you quietly lock it, because that’s your job – to make sure she is safe and sound. To tuck her in at night and give her morning kisses and good night kisses every single day.

Because love is fear, and it is hope, and it is tomorrow.

Love is divine.

And the greatest love letter ever written is you.