Hello Blackwoman,

It’s been a long time since I’ve spoken to you woman to man.

No B.S. No Bluster. No Strum und Drang. Just two people sharing thoughts and ideas.

You remember the days don’t you? Those happy times back in the day we had a love for you. It was a good love. It was a love that said that we had to have each other’s backs because the world was against us.

Either marching with Martin or using Necessary Means with Malcolm, we didn’t care. We told the world frequently and often that “You were All I Needed To Get By”, that “Ain’t No Mountain was High Enough” or love was “Solid” We loved each other, wanted each other, cared for each other.

Through thick and thin, through lynchings and cross burnings, through fire hoses and dogs … we had each other.

Unfortunately, things changed. I’m not sure when but suddenly it wasn’t fashionable for Blackmen to love you as much as they did before. No more did we praise you in music and word and quite frequently we failed to acknowledge your presence as the backbone of the Black Experience.

So because Blackmen hurt you by our words and actions, we became less of a desirable option for you to be with, to support and to honor.

No one should put blame on the other. We were both at fault … and the chasm grew wider. So times passed and our kids didn’t have the same love for each other.

Supahead was more than just a word to some people, she was an industry to herself. R. Kelly was using Blackgirls as his own urinal, all the while singing about the “Bump and Grind.”

So the anger boiled over and now simple hellos from Blackwomen and Blackmen are now met with skepticism from the other party.

Now when we were talking about each other like it was cold and disrespectful. We described each other in way different term:

“Nigga’s Ain’t Shit.”
“Bitches Ain’t Shit But Hoes and Tricks.”

We don’t talk to each other Blackwoman. I’ve had a hand in that personally and for that I need to apologize.

However we both know that we can’t continue doing this to each other. Because for all the screaming we are doing at each other:

“The Attitude … That’s why I don’t date sistas!”
“White Men know how to treat a Black Woman!”

It doesn’t solve the problem, it doesn’t give the answer and all we get is white noise.

I still love you Blackwoman and deep down I know that you love me too. I know that this is only a temporary blip on the radar. Soon the Blackman is going to get his shit to together in a way that it was before Malcolm, Martin and Medella.

We have too … we got too. Because we have kids out there who think its okay to say “I Need A Soulja,” “Project Bitch” “Hood Boy” or “Bad Bitch.”

These are not labels that should be for the future mothers and fathers of our children.

Because if we don’t there won’t be any of US any more.

Open Letter To A "Friend"

Hi, we were introduced long ago but I think you might have forgotten me.

At one time, I was your biggest supporter and always stood in awe of your work.

I was once told that you’re the reason why people write songs, sing beautiful music, or even launch a thousand ships .

I’ve head stories where you’ve helped people cure the sick or even the inspire people to build great works such as the Taj Mahal .

Even though I was not around when it happened, I was told that you are the reason that my parents got together.

People sang praises of your work and you have always been around even when I did not know it.

I’ve looked up to you all of my life and it started when I saw someone on TV speak your name. Before I knew it, I was campaigning hard to make sure people knew ALL about you.

It was easy back then. I was young and innocent and what you meant to me could be nothing more than a schoolboy crush. However, I kept at it because having your attention made me feel good.

It worked well until…

Something happened along the way. I used to think that I would know you forever … but as I grew older, I discovered that you were fickle. You didn’t like to stick around maintain the fruits of your labor and lots of people paid for that.

My parents tried to make it without you but they couldn’t handle the weight of the task and left each other years later.

They got off easy. I’ve heard others you have left that ended up dying, either by their hand or someone else’s.

However, I kept believing in you. Because you see you were the force I could always count on. There were people in music in the movies telling the world, “Love means never having to say that you’re sorry .”

I believed in that because to me it was more powerful than the equation that told me how the sun worked. It was more powerful than the chemical makeup that made of the air I breathe, the water I drank, the food I ate.

It was powerful because it was you….

And …

…you…

…were…

…LOVE .

I accepted you when I met my first girlfriend. She was sweet, kind and so willing to show me all the things you could give.

I wrote poetry … bought gifts … traveled the world to be with her.

It was a party as your cousins, Joy and Bliss frequently visited me as well. I thought I could never feel this way all the time.

However, something happened. You had to leave and like my parents before I couldn’t hold up the relationship and it crumbled.

I thought I would never talk to you again but once again, you showed up on my doorstep. You apologized for leaving me before and begged me to keep believing in you. You told me you would leave me high and dry again.

I believed you and like a battered woman who had nothing else to live for but you, I brought you back into my life.

But it always ended the same.

Year after Year, Woman after Woman I found myself having more pain than I needed to have. The heart was a fragile piece of machinery and repairing more than often make it less than what it was.

Suddenly the feeling that I got every time I met someone was replaced with something else. Something more deadly to me and those around me.

Exhilaration was replaced with Fear.
Confidence was replaces with uneasiness.
Emotion was replaced with Bitterness.

Now I was hanging around your cousins, Lust and Hate and they told me things you never could. They showed me how I could treat a woman and not get hurt. I had no choice because I did not want you to show up on my door step and leave me once again as you had do so many times before.

My heart could not take much more.

Obviously, you were making the rounds because I noticed that even when you did stay your work got perverted. People didn’t treat people with the same raw emotion that they did before.

No Grand Halls were be built. No ships were launched … it was basic, primal ... lonely.

Where there was once celebration of your kind touches by word and song it was now cynical looks at what it was all worth.

The Booty Call replaced the Sweet Nothing.

Sad isn’t it.

I think so.

I don’t want to hate you any more. It’s too taxing and will leave me to be a bitter and lonely old man if I do.

So I’m going to make the first move. I’m going to extend an olive branch asking you to help me spread the word again. Help me show people that you’re not some urban legend that people whisper to their boyfriends/girlfriends/babymamas/babydaddies to keep them in line.

I know that we can do this together. Don’t you need the good press.

Don’t you need to know that your life on this planet matters.

So Love, tell me, what can we do to change the world. What can we do to make things right?

At least meet me halfway.

You owe me that much at least.

My ex-girlfriend asked me why I don’t hang out with her new boyfriend.

I don’t have an answer. Well that’s a lie because I already know the answer … I’m still in love with her.

I can’t sit here and be all cool with their relationship when in fact I want nothing more than to be in the same position that he is in right now. It’s true that you never want something until it’s gone.

I had everything that he had once but me and she never could make it work. I gave it my all but lots of things got in the way: My friends, Her family … me.

So I gave her the freedom that she wanted and let her go before she had a chance to cheat on me as she did so many guys before.

Now she wants me to be by her side and celebrate all of the good things that happen between them. She tells me all the time that he’s so cool with our friendship that he wants us to come together for picnics and barbecues together.

I don’t want to do that.

I don’t want to sit there and look that man in his face while perpetrating a lie.

The truth is that while they have been making a life for themselves … she has been slept with me on several occasions. Now I don’t know if its because she asks me for money and feels obligated to “thank” me for being with her in that way or the fact that he’s not equipped in various ways to satisfy her (as she tells it), but the fact of the matter is that it has happened.

We are friends but … we are special friends. Try as I might to figure things out it always comes out the same.

So I have to maintain the fact that we are friends for the most part and because of that friendship I have to give myself to her in various ways.

When she has asked me to help her with the problems in their relationships … I’ve done that. When she has asked for money whenever she needed a bill paid … I’ve done that. I’ve done that with no questions asked because I love her that much.

Maybe that’s part of the problem, because for the most part it makes me look like I’m the lesser man of the two. According to some reports, I’m not ready to do the friendly thing because I’m suffering from “hateration” because they are so happy and I’m not.

He might be right about that … maybe I don’t want to be in the middle of the love fest while the two of them love each other with the same power that the two of us use to love each other.
I mean he’s not the man I would have pictured her settling down with. I always feel that the woman that leaves me should leave me for a step up rather than a step down. He’s a 34 year old man who is cheating on his wife (a wife that gave him 6 children).

Now they are together in a brand new 3 bedroom house while I’m sitting in a one bedroom apartment by myself.

She says she loves him and I should be happy because she’s happy.

Of course if they loved each other that much … why would she be taking money from me? Why would she be trying to fuck me on the side?

I don’t know about anyone else but I know two things about myself. I’m not a good liar and for the most part, I kill myself with guilt. Someway, somehow I would give myself up and the truth would come out.

I’m still in love with her. Or so I think. I mean if I really loved her … wouldn’t I have told her that fact when I told her we should move out. Would I have not fought to keep the house together after we lived together for 3 months.

No, I gave up because we were having problems and I knew it would mean that one of us would cheat on the other. It was meant to happen.

Meanwhile, I’ve been playing the “good friend” because that is what I am supposed to do.

I helped them move in together. I helped them with their relationship … I should get kudos for that. Now they want me to sit there and watch them “coo” with each other and I’m supposed to act like she wasn’t over my house last night screwing me for the exchange for cash.

I don’t do secrets well because I feel guilty.

Now I got to make a decision that will affect me for sometime. Either don’t hang out with her because it bothers her new man or hang out with them and have my heart tore out over and over again.

Perhaps he is a better man than me because he wouldn’t put up with this crap. He would force her to make a decision.

She’s happy … and she’s should be happier without me because for all the torture that I put upon myself this shouldn’t be something that I should do.

I think I’m still in love with her … but I don’t know if that is true. On one hand I feel slighted and hurt and the other hand I feel relieved that she’s some else’s problem and not mine.

One of the many quandaries in my life. I’m not sure if I’m going to ever figure that one out.

Fantasy excited to me because it was the only thing under my control. In my fantasies, I could be whatever I wanted to be and would not feel ridicule or indignation because of it.

I was a better lover than Valentenio.

I was a better Bond than James could ever be.

I was more powerful than Superman and more ruthless than J.R.

This proved to be invaluable, as the trappings of the “real” world could never provide me with something I could relate to. In the real world, I had too many labels that weighed upon me and burdened with the power to overcome them.

High school saw me as a nerd.

College saw me as an Oreo.

Graduation saw me as an Uncle Tom.

Now fantasy was the only thing that seemed to comfort me in my last remaining moments on this planet.

That’s right I said last remaining moments . . . because I didn’t want to live in a world that refused to accept my fantasies or me. Too many times I had played the role of the good person for the reason of doing well in this life so that I would have what gave be given back to me. Of course that was fantasy in itself because the world did not operate in that manner. The world took from you . . . the world bled you dry and all the players inside of it were on there own agenda.

I wanted my own place in the sun but too many times when I tried my best I frequently rolled snake eyes. I gave up on too many chances when I was younger because it got too difficult then tried to over compensate for other task that seemed more than Herculean.

The reason for that: I felt I was due.

Some have said that I needed to pray to GOD but for reasons that were only known to me I did not believe in the deity. I haven’t believed in GOD fully since Junior High . . . during that time I lived with an abusive father and a mother who seemed to give up trying to help the situation by wanting to stay in it.

I don’t forgive very easily and I have had a grudge against the almighty since that time that girl in eleventh grade told me that she did not want to go out with me because GOD told her I was not for her.

Strange.

I continued my love-hate relationship with the Lord when I found out that I wasn’t right for the last three women I told that I loved. I wondered if this was a personal thing or the fact I was just plain stupid.

Love was the one thing I never gave up on. I believed in it so strongly because I never got to see much of it at home. Love was something that people sung about and killed for but in my house it never got a second thought. For the most part I wanted to experience the things that R&B singers crooned about on the radio.

It always missed me and I blamed GOD for it.

My ex, always told me to be happy for what I had, my health, my sound mind and the fact that I was working when other people didn’t have the chance to do so. I couldn’t feel that way because what good what good health when I was lonely, what good was a sound mind when I didn’t have anybody to talk to and what good was having a job when the only person who was dependant on me was me.

Loneliness was something I hated more than anything in the world because it forced me to deal with the situation that I was less than the man I should have been.

Now I’m not lonely because I’m unattractive. No I’m fairly attractive with a good pair of clothes and decent haircut I could give that guy from the young and the restless a run for his money. I’m lonely because none of the women and other people I have known fit the mold of friendship and mateship I require. I have good friends and we converse frequently on the phone but most of them are living their own lives.

These are all women who are powerful and successful . . . in deep and meaningful relationships.

I am jealous of each and every one of them.

Thankfully they all live out of state.

So back to my vision of fantasy . . . it pales in comparison to the hateful sting of reality. Reality sees me alone, about to get kicked out of my apartment and all I can see is how I fucked it all up for myself. I can’t stop wallowing in self-pity and wanting to put myself in that same destructive hole that my father once did nine years ago.

OJ wasn’t a free man then but my father understood his pain and drank himself into a coma that lasted a week.

I don’t want to end up like that.

But the loneliness I feel is so painful that I want to just get out of here. The only way to do that is to put a bullet in my head.

So what keeps me from doing that, what keeps me from driving my car of a bridge, or taking pills or slitting my wrist.

Simple: I don’t want to live this world without making some sort of a mark. Because you see, the living forgets the dead, the more of a mark that you leave the more they will remember you.

And the only way you can do that is by being famous.

You think that people would have cared if that woman in that car crash in Paris was anybody else but Princess Diana? Do you think that people would have cared if that person in that plane crash in Massachusetts was anybody but JFK Jr.

People get remembered for being famous.

People get things done for being famous.

And people don’t end up like me because they are famous.

Or rich.

Now rich people get everything they want because money makes them more attractive. I have never seen a beautiful woman on the arms of a poor man and I have never seen Rich man on the arms of an ugly woman.

I guess my value system is all messed up because I’ve seen what it means to be “normal” and I hate it. When you are rich and famous, all of your quirks are not seen as weird . . . rather you are eccentric.

I haven’t felt good about myself in a year and I hate my life.

The fantasies in my head seem like a better place to dwell at times . . . but reality says I can’t make that possible.

The women in my life don’t seem to want to have nothing to do with me unless I have money and the women who do what to be with me I would end up cheating on upon the first opportunity.

I was happy a year ago.

Or at least content

I don’t like upheaval.

I want to go back to that moment of relative peace.

The peace only fantasy brings.

Which is something I can control.

I am crazy.

Crazy because I find myself doing things for a woman who sees me as something less than what I want her too.

Why else would I be helping her move into a house with a dude that I feel is so less beneath me in class and dignity? Why else would I be helping her maintain her relationship with someone that I feel is less than worthy of her love.

I’m crazy.

There is no other way to classify it than that because anything else doesn’t make any sense.

I mean I have my own life. I have another ex-girlfriend who can’t stand me talking to another ex-girlfriend because she wants me to herself. Did I mention that ex-girlfriend has a husband who doesn’t give her half of the things that I used to give her in the romance department but gives her everything that I never could give her when it came money and responsibility.

Same with the current ex-girlfriend.

You see I’m a struggling artist who has the passion that burns hotter than a thousand suns but she had two children that need a daddy rather than a dreamer. Of course I could have never dreamed that she would have been settling with someone who was still married with six kids of his own.

However she still calls me for advice on how to make the relationship work. She still calls me whenever she wants the good dick that she missed so long ago.

So I still look out for her whenever she asks for favors because I care for her that much.

It’s weird because the current boyfriend does not know about our closeness and wants to hang out with me because he used me as a convenient lie to his current wife so she won’t leave with his kids. He says he loves them.

However something happened along the way while I was trying to sleep with his girlfriend.

I fell in love with her.

Now I’m left trying not to look at her directly in her face with she talks because she can see the pain the whole experience has taken. I try not to tell her about the way I am feeling because she’s moving in with her “soul mate” and she wants to make her life with him work.

So I try to suppress the feelings I have for her and look to other pussy to take my mind off things.

However it hasn’t worked as well as I hoped and I have relapsed on occasion. I have turned into a punk-ass shedding tears for someone who has clearly moved on to other facets of her life.

“You don’t know what you mean to me.” She tells me.

I want to tell her the same but I know that she loves him more. (Of course cheating on him with me would say otherwise)

“I’m never going to let you go.” She exclaims.

I feel the same but I can’t look at her without feeling like I’m lying. (Of course sleeping with the girlfriend of someone who doesn’t know I am would say otherwise)

Other men would love this position. They get sex on the side and no one would know the difference. However I realize that secrets rarely stay buried for long and it is only a matter of time before someone realizes what is going to happen.

It’s a great acting job but I don’t have the acting chops to continue.

I’m crazy … and I need to fine the cure as quick as possible or its going to get ugly.

I was over to a friend’s house enjoying a good meal and sharing some good times when the television before us flashed some interesting images.

ABC had promised America the two-hour premiere of the television show, The Bachelor. I had not followed the other shows in the series but my friend has been interested in this reality show since its inception. She tuned in every week to see which girl would win the handsome bachelor’s hand. She was enthralled with the fact that this man was able to widdle down his choices from 25 to a simple two, which would include the one he had to pick as his bride.

As the images continue to unfold, my mind started to wonder. Is this entertainment? Why would people care if a guy dates 25 or more women on the way to holy matrimony? After all men have been playing the field for years.

Then I thought deeper, why should WE care.

The “we” meaning black folk.

Should we care enough to find out if there would ever be a Black Bachelor? One virile African-American Male set to pick 25 beautiful women on his way down the isle.

In word: NO.

I told my friend of this fact and she was stunned and amazed that I would turn this into a white/black issue. My plan was to point out the absurdity of the situation.

It’s okay for a white man to be paraded around on national television while taking the pick of the litter in order to settle down with but a black man in good conscious could not.

The White Man’s THE BACHELOR, while a brother in the same situation would probably be called DA PLAYA.

Let’s face facts, no Nielsen family in Iowa, Idaho or even Los Angeles would feel comfortable with a black man having his pick of white women. There is still fear and loathing out there and that fear and loathing resides in many of the television boardrooms.

Of course we, as in black folk, don’t help matters in this situation. We make songs about women like they are interchangeable parts in our love machine.

“Let me stick my key in your ignition babe.”

Or we tell women where are minds are at from the first date.

“I don’t see nothing wrong . . . with a little bump and grind.”

Or when it comes down to walking down the isle we go there defeated.

“We ain’t getting no younger we might as well do this.”

Do you think that we will ever see black men in a positive light? Do you ever think we will see something that has the positive aspects of black love and relationships correctly indicated on stage and screen?

The probability is about as much as seeing a black quality black drama on network television and have it survive the first season.

The madness of this world is beyond words.

It was a beautiful day outside in the city of Atlanta, Georgia and two friends were about to experience for what it was worth. The temperature was a muggy 92 degrees in the shade and higher outside of it but it was held at by air conditioning inside a car that was working to full strength.

Inside the car were two friends. A man and a woman who had known each other for a long time. He was a greeting card writer for an Internet greeting card company while she held a job as a paralegal for a bigwig attorney.

They were good friends who enjoyed each other’s company for the most part.

Of course, that was until someone else had something else to say about that.

“It’s been six months, 8 days, 12 hours since you went away.”

A song floated over the radio listened by the two. It was something that of course listened to by many of the listeners of the local Atlanta radio station and touched the hearts of many.

Specifically the two persons in the car.

He spoke first: “I can’t believe that man on the radio.”

“Brian McKnight?” She said. “I love this song.”

“You would.” He responded quickly.

“Why don’t you?” She questioned him just as quickly. She was in control of the conversation as easily as she was in control of the car of which she was behind the steering wheel of.

“Because that nigga is the biggest beggar on the planet.”

“You said the same thing about Boyz II Men.”

“That’s as a group.” He said. “But this guy has them beat . . . I mean really.”
She frowned slightly. “You’re over exaggerating.”

“Am I – this song says it all: ‘It’s been six months, 8 days, 12 hours since you went away.’” He paused. “My God that song has the makings of a restraining order.”

“So you are telling me that you’ve never been in love so much that you count the moments since you and the woman that you are in love with have parted?”

The car continued to move through the highways and byways that sliced through Atlanta. They were about to go to a park on the edge of town. It was hoped that they would enjoy the moment that GOD had provided for them . . . as good friends would.

“Not to the point that all life stops.” He told her. “Women love this type of shit on the radio but in real life it doesn’t make a bit of sense. “

“Really.”

“Yes, Really.” He told her with some amount of finality. “If Brian McKnight were to call you with this stuff your next call would be to the police . . . people get shot by boyfriends who think like this.”

“Once again I think to a blowing this way out of proportion.”

“I see I’m going to have to go The Practice route on you.” He paused. “If it pleases the court: I’d like to call Brian McKnight to the stand.”

“Please tell me you haven’t stooped to delving into fantasy?” She asked him. “Now you want to play out the scenes of a television show to prove your point?”

“Just play along.” He told her. “There is a method to my madness.”

“Okay,” she sighed. “But I’d like it put on record that you are in some serious need of mental help.”

“Duly noted.” He told her. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

He began. “Now Mister McKnight is it true on the night in question that you called your ex-girlfriend and asked her the following questions.”

“And what questions might those be?”

“Please don’t avoid my examination,” He said with a distinct lawyer tone. “Might I remind you that you are still under oath?”

She played the part as if it was her own. “That’s fine but I was simply calling an ex-girlfriend to tell her of my feelings for her.”

“’Do you ever think about me?’” He asked. “Is that what you asked her that night?”

“Yes.”

“’Do you ever cry yourself to sleep?’” He asked. “Another question you posed to your ex-girlfriend that night.”

“Yes.”

“’In the middle of the night when you are awake are you calling out for me?’” He asked once again quoting verbatim the lyrics of the song. “’Do you ever reminisce. . . .’”

“Objection!” She said.

“You can’t object,” He told her. “You’re the witness.”

“I’m also the defense.”

“You’re making a mockery of this courtroom.”

“This coming from a man who is putting Brian McKnight on trial.”

“Point taken.” He paused. “And your objection is?”

“You’re leading the witness,” She told him. “There is no point to your questioning.”

“I am simply trying to establish a precedence to Mister McKnight’s actions on the night in question . . . it should be known that the accused has a history of not letting women go and stalking them to the point they have know choice but to run from him or go out with him. “ He stopped his sentence for a moment and gathered more of his thoughts. “That is the nature of his songs and lyrics to lull the victim into a sense of pity so that they have no choice but to be his.” He smiled.

“I’ll grant the defense’s objection.”

His smile quickly turned into a frown. He had not expected such opposition to his argument.

“Yes I’m the judge too.” She said as she explained to him the reason for breaking protocol.

He reacted quickly and coolly. “I see I’m dealing with a stacked deck here.”

“It worked for O.J.”

“Well then, your honor you should be able to see in real life nothing is ever the same such as the lyrics that Mr. McKnight sings about.” He explained. “His formulaic lyrics are based on obvious romantic fixations and imaginations.”

“I don’t see that is the case.”

“Perhaps you are not looking at it the right way.” He paused to give her a moment to respond, when she did not he began another statement of ‘fact.’ “If a real man was to say anything to such as that to a real woman then that person is going to be accused of stalking them.” His smile grew broader. “Or as the lyric right after the one that counsel objected to earlier states: ‘I can’t believe I’m acting like this . . . I know it’s crazy . . . I still can feel your kiss.’” He paused once again. “That to me is sign of a man who is not living in the basis of his own reality.”

“Objection,” she said once again. “Mister McKnight’s sanity is not on trial here . . . obviously he is in great pain over the breakup stated in the song.” She smiled back him and raised an eyebrow. “Maybe he was the one that left her and felt that he made a mistake in doing so . . . so in calling her he felt that perhaps he needed to state that if she was still feeling that way . . . he would want to have her back in his life.”

“It’s always the man who does wrong in these situations huh?”

“Have you ever heard a song from a man when a woman messes up?” She paused before breaking into a chuckle. “Oh that’s right women never do anything wrong.”

“We’ll get to that disparaging comment later.” He looked at her lovingly yet sternly and said. “Might I remind the court the transcript from the chorus of the song: ‘It’s been 6 months, 8 days, 12 hours since you went away.’” He suspended his thought for short moment then said, “That proves that she left him not the other way around.” He flashed her a smile with all of his teeth in tow. “Objection overruled.”

“You can’t be the judge on this case but I’ll allow an overrule of the objection because of its presentation.”

“Your mercy is touching.” He told her.

“As always.” She retorted.

“May I continue?”

“Yes, please.” She said while smiling. She was beginning to enjoy this little game.
He coughed then spoke again. “It seems to Mister McKnight that love is a series of moments in which – boy loses girl, boy pouts while girl goes on with her life then boy sings song to girl.” There was a devilish glint in his eye as he then told her. “The results of which sends the girl back to him because she knew in her heart she was wrong.”

“And you are saying that people don’t make mistakes and come back to the men afterward?” She asked him.

“I never have seen it happen . . . a least when the woman is the one who has bounced out of the relationship.” He told her. “Men yes. In music, movies and songs they are always the ones who come back . . . but for women . . . HELL NO!!”

“Oooo,” she said. “That is pretty sexist.”

“Sue me.” He told her. “But that is true.” He smiled. “It’s like an urban legend . . . everyone has talked about but rarely has it been seen.”

“Damn, that woman clearly did a number on you.” She told him.

“No,” he told her. “She just made me see reality.” He paused and looked out the window. “And every song that flies in the face of that I have to put in its place.”

“Well I guess we have no choice but to find Mister McKnight guilty of stalking in the first degree.” She told him as she placed a loving hand on his own. “How would you like to sentence the accused?”

“Life plus 20 years.” He told her.

She laughed but then after a few moments found out that she was the only one laughing. Her friend looked to her and flashed her a smile that was too broad to take seriously. It was as if he was hiding something behind that smile.

Pain.

Of course, she knew the pain that he was feeling.

The pain from a recent breakup that of course was one of many that left him the bitter shell of a man that he was now. She wanted to help him through this trying time but she knew enough of him as a friend to leave things alone.

He would work through as he did with so many others.

She squeezed his hand slightly in the hopes that it would convey enough to him that love was still around for the most part. Love that was not located in the songs on the radio, in the sunshine in the sky or in the birds in the trees.

No, love was not that blatant.

Love was in the softness in a person’s touch, in the smile at the end of the day and in the concern of a friends voice when it seems that the world was ending.

“She doesn’t deserve you.” She told her friend.

“I know,” He told her as he smiled. “But that still doesn’t take the sting out of it.” He sighed. “I still love her . . . even though she doesn’t deserve it I still love her.”

“Maybe you can take her to court and sue her for the love she failed to give to you.”

He chuckled slightly before he said. “Now who is in need of mental help?” He flashed her a more genuine smile soon after.

They laughed together as to old friends who shared a moment that was more real than one shared by any lover. The car continued its trek as another song came on the radio. It was Donnell Jones and he was signing to a woman that he knew for a long time but wanted to get out of a relationship to find out “Where he wanted to be.”

She liked that song as well. It was passionate, romantic and told the thoughts and feelings about a man who had mixed feelings between what he wanted and what the world presented to him.

It seemed easy to ascertain, the couple could have been going through problems . . . she on the other hand could be feeling the same way. After all they had known each other since “their teenage years,” so it was plausible that they were bored with each other.

Perhaps they needed to be apart for a while before they could know if they were to be together.

However, she though about her friend and the comment that he made earlier. If she put the song in the context of “real life,” if she was the woman on the other end of that song would she just sit there and let a man break up with her, go out and look for other women in order to see if he wanted to be with her.

She found herself saying NO. What self-respecting woman would let herself wait for a man as he does whatever he wanted to in order to do the right thing.

She would have kicked him to the curb a long time ago. She would have been a woman and told him to go to hell. If He did not want her in the situation that they were end for as long as they knew each other then she would do without him.

She could do bad by herself.

With that in mind, she found herself reaching for the radio. Seconds later she turned it off.

“What did you do that for?” He said.

“All of a sudden,” she told him “I’m not in the mood to listen to the radio.” She sighed.

He placed a hand on her shoulder. “I know what you mean . . . it just doesn’t seem to make sense anymore.”

“Nothing does,” she told him. “Nothing does.”