"Love Otherworldly" by: Melody Weckel-Confer -- Handler's Choice

The dreamy books of love: love only exists between humans and aliens. Affection is best heard through earthling ears, whispered as sweet-nothings by a Martian to her lover. Back then, we didn’t know that the only real love is interspecies. The Buddhists discovered the universal truth before anyone else on Earth. The enlightened opened their third eye and saw blue creatures of light—they felt warmth in their hearts like when their mother smiled upon them as a child. A loving oven. The first human relationship with one of the cosmic race was Buzz Aldrin with a lady of the Moon. A missed connected formed amongst the craters. Love at first step for mankind. Maybe love is really about worship. Buzz worshipped his lunar love as if she were a goddess. Maybe love between species is just the same as mortal affection—a long series of misplaced admiration. Biologically, humans are evolved from earlier versions of ourselves—apes, Neanderthals. Some people say the aliens are seeking out breeding partners to complete the next evolutionary process. We aren’t supposed to say ‘alien’ anymore. We need to know where they come from:

Ivika of Venus, but not Andy of New York. To them we are just people. Humans are a dime a dozen, an aging population. Has our time run its course? I’ve been told that kissing women from Jupiter tastes like chalk. Champagne and chalk coating the tongue like a cloud of interstellar dust. It’s illegal to make out with a Martian. They’ve begun to spread propaganda—some of the aliens that is. Humans don’t have enough eyes! This declaration damages my self-esteem. Are my two eyes not valid? When I was a child, I learned that I needed glasses. The space creatures don’t understand some pieces of human technology. They don’t have impaired vision. They don’t have impairs. I went to a doctor to air my eyes. I had them gelled and enlarged to receive my corrective lens. I told my story to an acquaintance from Pluto. He told me my memory sounded like a fresh form of torture. I looked to my dreams for the answer and found my mother. Love everyone. Love every planetary being. Love the earthlings. Love me in secret. Love me while I love someone else. Why don’t you share, this thing I have for you, foreign, alien, my abstract love? Kitty is often the victim of love. Give with an excess of take. Self-love isn’t alien but it’s easiest to find amidst the stars, near a blackhole. An eclipsing sun. She once thought she was star-struck. She didn’t realize then her mate is in another galaxy. Hitch-hiking between solar systems.

In the year 2543 there will be no more people. We will be sub-people. Created—not born of this world. The United Nations meets weekly to plan for this eventuality. Extinction looms on the horizon while we integrate into the galactic melting pot. Inter-species marriage is now legal in every nation. The ceremonies speak to the cosmic culture of these creatures—no flowers of love, no rings. I can never understand the language of their vows. Native Martian sounds like a singing lawnmower. I don’t understand love. It shifts constantly. Too abstract to understand. Love languages too alien to appreciate. Imaginary tomes tell the tale of romance—in every form, too unreal not to believe.