Love Me Not

by Asha Sierra
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    To whom it may concern,

    I will never understand the obsession humans have with love. I mean it’s beautiful, sure, but so is the sky after a fire. The momentary allure isn’t worth the ashes. For me, it’s the same thing as love. The only difference is that fire is real, love is not.

     See the way “love” works has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the god who controls it. Eros. Nothing is stronger than the effect of his arrows. Is it possible to find your flame without him? Maybe. But it’ll look like a candlelight compared to the Great Fire.

    What a sad life you live. To believe you are the pilot when you are a mere passenger—one without a voice and a say. We laugh at you, did you know that?

    If it makes you feel better, our lives are just as awful as yours. Our family trees are covered in fresh blood. Olympus harbors wounds that will never close. Up here, resentment festers like mold. Rumors spread like wildfire. There have been whispers that Eros has raised his youngest​ daughter to not believe in love. They pity him. The god of love is pitied. Yes, he has one perfect daughter, Hedone the goddess of physical joy. But then he has me. The only one in all of Olympus who doesn’t believe in love.

    He calls me Everly.

    They call me Heartless. The biggest cynic the skies have ever seen.

    “How could you not believe in love?” they wonder.

    If you find out all the magician's tricks, would you still believe that the rabbit appeared in his hat? You can’t unlearn the truth, and can’t make the seen unseen again. You cannot unset the fire. Magic isn’t real, and as far as I am concerned, neither is love.

    I would know. The man with the arrows couldn’t even get his wife to love him enough to stay.

    They lived happily ever after.

    You mortals sure love to embellish.

    They lived. But they were not happy. How could my mother be happy with a man who tried to doom her? Who fell for her under pretenses? He came into her life with the hope of tying her to another—someone monstrous, someone cruel. Only to fall for her himself and expect her to do the same.

    How could it be possible for her to do the same? How would she fall for a man who does his mother's jealous bidding? That’s not a man, not one for her at least.

    And yet my mother, Psyche fell. She fell for the lies and the liar.

    Love is a lie.

    It is conniving.

    It is swearing you’ll never burn the other but then dripping hot oil from a candle on their shoulder as they sleep. Trying to reveal the parts of themselves they keep from you on purpose.

    Love is desperation.

    It is trying to love someone fully when you have met half of their heart. It is the trials and tribulations of trying to prove to others that the attempt counts for something. It counts for nothing. It is just embarrassing.

    Love is embarrassing.

    Especially since what my parents had was not love. It couldn’t have been. Love is not my mother dying on the steps of Mount Olympus only to be resurrected as a personification of a soul rather than a person.

    If that’s love, then love is awful.

    Awful for her to leave me. Awful for her to take Hedone with her. And for me to be left with him. The man who shoots people for fun—for target practice. He plays architect with lives he cares nothing about. He’s the god of an entity he knows nothing of.

    Pity him? No, pity me. Having to learn from a man like that. Having to watch innocents corrupted by his idea of love.

    Did you know his bow is dipped in gold? He said it is so he knows the weight of his role before he shoots and that I should know the load I carry as well. Though, if you saw his reckless aim you would think it was made of feathers.

    Why must I be careful and calculated? All while he is thoughtless and trigger-happy. Why can I not have fun as he does?

    They say wise restraint is better than reckless actions. At least recklessness gets you results. Eros was right about that.

    If he is right then what is wrong with me aiming for the wife and seeing if she still loves the husband after I make her love another? What is wrong with listening to the music of his cries as she leaves him? If love is all you need, why can it not survive a silly stupid arrow? And what is wrong with me entertaining myself with the chaos? Warming my hands with the fire? It is already burning so what is the crime in indulging?

    What will be the harm in finding a love of my own? Creating a love of my own. Molding one’s emotions like clay until I get the sculpture I desire. All it takes is one gold-tipped arrow for their heart to only beat for me. One look in their eyes will have you thinking I was an angel—a godsend. How powerful these bows can be is incredible because I have been the farthest thing from one.
    
    Angels do not let their loves follow them around like lost puppies. Cutting them loose when they get bored. I get bored quickly.
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    Love is boring.

    After two weeks I set them free with a blunted lead arrow and move on to the next. But sometimes...I don’t. Sometimes I forget to sever the tie.

    Angels do not force people to love them and then leave. Angels would not forget the boy from last month. They would not forget his name or his face. They would not forget the string that connects them. They would never forget the one rule.
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    My father has spewed a lot of bullshit at me throughout the years. But I used to think I could remember the one rule that was actually important, and ignore the rest. I was wrong.
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    The boy with the forgettable face, forgettable name, and forgettable everything shows up on my doorstep. There is an open wound where I shot him last. The sight of the gaping hole makes me sick. Nausea makes me remember his name. River.

    River tells me how he tried to walk off the edge of the world. All in search of me. He did not mean to nearly trip off cliffs. But he confesses that if he died looking for me he would be grateful. Because he would rather not live than live without me. I would rather die a thousand times than hear those words again.

    There is a lead arrow under my bed. I grab it, and I warn him. The gold tip has soothing properties; at worst it’s a prick. At best, it is a pinch of ecstasy. The blunt lead is agony. Every painful millimeter will feel endless. It has recipients pray for an end that will not come. It is why I always flee after shooting them—it hurts me too. Even with the warning, he says he just wants this unrequited torture to end. It is this or loving him back. Stabbing him with the arrow is easier.​

    River lies down on the ground, and I kneel over him. Arrow between my palms and without warning, I do it. He cries out in pain. Then he cries out that he still loves me. I laugh because that’s not possible. So I take the arrow and rip it out of his abdomen before plunging it back in. And he says loves me still.

    I was cautioned. When you wait too long to reverse the effects of the gold-tipped arrow, they are permanent. It has to be just another one of fathers lies. It has to be.

    He loves me. He better not.

    Love me? Love me not.

    Love me, love me not.

    Love me not. Not.

    Not!

    His voice is raspy when he tells me he will love me for every eternity.

    “Forever, my dear Everly,” he sobs out.

    Then his body stills. His breathing stops. Life leaves his eyes. The river ceases to flow.

    My name was the last word to leave his lips and his blood is stained on my hands.

    Magic is not real. Rabbits do not appear inside hats. And love does not exist. It can’t. Because if this is love? This conniving, awful, pathetic, obsessive, suicidal, murderous entity is love. Then I want no part in it.

    As I stare at his lifeless body, I have to hold back a laugh. I guess the peanut gallery was right all along. Maybe I am heartless. Being raised by a demon disguised as a god will do that to you. Even so, it’s almost funny, no? The daughter of Eros killed her ex-lover with her arrow. What a headline.

    He loves me not as I pull out the arrow for the final time. I stand and walk over to the fireplace and toss it in. The lead hisses as it burns and I smile while it melts.

    You cannot unset the fire.

    I grab six more of my arrows and toss them in too. Then I grab them all. I get my dad’s arrows, I get the spares, I get the broken ones. I get his bow and set it all ablaze. And it is beautiful.

    I don’t think I’ll ever get your obsession with love. I don’t want to.

    Remember when I said that your love lives are nothing without the Eros? Maybe it’s time for me to be proven wrong. Time for you mortals to stand on your own two feet. See if you can love without the arrows. The last thing you are getting from me is my word that the god’s of love are done. There will be no more meddling in your trite lives. You would be advised not to hold your
breath that Eros will return and aid you again. He won’t, I’ll make sure of it.

    If love is so real, do it on your own.

    Good luck because you are sure as hell gonna need it.



    Love, Everly
  

Asha Sierra is a creative writing student based in Michigan.