44: Thin Love

“Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all.” — Toni Morrison, Beloved.

Jul 14, 2026

Late in June, my lips discovered a new hierarchy of thirst: that after saliva, there is something more tantilasing than water.

Cold-brewed tea.

I did not learn about this by chance. You see, this year, I had taken up a number of habits, one of which includes watching strangers on tiktok brew tea.

It is no news that I have always carried an embarrassing longing for a homemade glass of virgin mojito, I search for guides I would never use and forget the process the next hour. But last month after I watched a video of a lady transform two teabags into something endearing, I decided to make my first jug of cold-brewed lemon tea.

To begin my task, I headed to the supermarket to get fruits and tea. Although, I nearly abandoned the task after spotting the steep price of Twinings. I concluded that I would go for a cheaper option and Augustea was the best fit. On getting home, I made a masterpiece of intent: three (or four) tablespoons of honey to taste, a sliced tangerine, two pears, and two bags of peach-flavored tea. I put my bad boy in the fridge, watched it steal my heart, and made an unspoken pledge to take a glass of it every morning.

But abundance is a fleeting illusion.

With everyday that passed, the tea drained closer to the floor of the jug and then I decided that I was going to cure the looming dearth by pouring about two cups of water back into the jug. I genuinely believed that the flavour would stretch to meet the new volume if I added a bit of honey.

Instead, I returned to something distasteful. The tantalising taste of the tea was gone. Worse, the tangerine had begun to ferment, leaving behind the sour, heavy taste of something familiar to phlegm. I felt a sense of betrayal. How dare it die on me?

There it was: the same colour, the same jug. Yet it was thinning right before my eyes.

How can a thing lose its soul while keeping its shape?

This, my friend, is not a story about ruined flavour.

This is the genesis of thin love.

The last time I said “I love you”, I was speaking to the mirror. Sitting in the dark of my room after a heavy meltdown, I found myself whispering gratitude to God for a grace I didn't feel I deserved. It was one of the rare, fragile moments in my life where I have uttered those words and truly meant them.

So, how do I have the license to write about thin love when I am still trying to comprehend its weight?

I found the vocabulary for it in the pages of Toni Morrison’s Beloved.

“Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all.”

These were the words of Sethe to her lover, Paul D, the vessels Toni Morrison used to carry her own heavy truths about love.

The first time I read this line, I closed my book to think for a bit (It also inspired this story I had written).

What even is “thin love,” and how can a concept, heavy and confusing, end up light as a feather?

Just like my tea, thin love mimics the right hue when it is safely inside a pitcher. You see, when we fear the void that follows, we dilute what is left just to keep it full. We eventually become colour blind, we say things like: Yes, it was a deeper hue but the honey will make it sweet, there is still flavour in it.

Then what do we get? Thinning tea. Thinning love. A vessel of glass; a vessel of flesh. Same story.

Thin love takes several forms. It is when you look at a person and say, “I love you” but because they fill the vessel.

Sure they watch the movies you love, finish your sentences, and hold the keys to the career you have always wanted, but that kind of pleasant sun isn’t heavy enough to pull two souls down into the earth, where the deepest roots have to grow.

You see, when a relationship is built only on these fragile coincidences like shared hobbies and aesthetic symmetry, it inevitably loses its flavour. It fails because it does not go down to the dark, heavy soil where roots must grow: the shared reckonings of grief, religion, politics, or even the quiet, mundane intimacy of how someone needs their coffee when the world is bruising them.

My friend, during our conversation about teas, referred to teabags as flavoured soil and I find it rather poetic—for this purpose. When your flavoured soil loses its flavour, will you find yourself frantically watering down its contents?

Do you find yourself stretching your love because you are utterly terrified of facing an empty container?

Water heals.

Current Read:

I currently reading a book I found in the library. It has been a struggle reading it because I have been thinking about life a bit too much lately. The truth is, whenever I am in this mood, I love to reach out for a book with a hint of romance or comedy; something that serves as an escape for me.

Unfortunately, I am sticking to A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah.

Great read so far.

Visual Interlude: