Close your eyes and imagine what your life could be like if you had a Gentleman, a real gentleman, a true gentleman. I don’t mean men who will open doors for you or pulls out your chair at the dinner table for you. Oh no! I mean someone who will satisfy your every wish. If you need someone to talk to, he will listen, when you are upset, he will relax and sooth your restless soul, when you come home from a hard day of work, he comes home early prepares a romantic dinner, cleans the house, runs your bath just the way you like it & prepares the bed not for sex but to give you something nice to say about your day. A man that can massage away all your mental, physical, & emotional stress to try to make you feel like you are the only woman in the world that has a man like him. What would you do with a man like this?

I know what you will do. You will always have to work late. You will never call him until you need help with something you don’t want to do yourself. If he asks you out on a Friday night, you’ll tell him you have to work so you can go out with mister muscles you met in the mailroom & get your freak on. When he is ready to spend quality time with you, you have to meet your girlfriends so you can go party at Club Need some D.

You will do all this not realizing he is fed up with this lack of appreciation of his efforts to keep you happy. Then your best girlfriend the one you always brag to about him sees how you are mistreating him. When she tries to tell to straighten up & fly right you say, "Girl, that man will never leave a sister like me!" Six months later you still can’t understand why your girlfriend and your, now ex-good man, are so happy together. You should have realized what you had when you had a chance. Good thing a gentleman is only in your imagination.

-Kenneth D. Ross

Longing, desire, confusion, I’m lost in an ocean of bewilderment. My thoughts unfocused, logic baffled, I’m spinning and spinning round and round; dizziness. Everything is fading; the light slowly shifts to darkness as I plummet through this whirlwind of conscious unconsciousness. My focus is fading like the last of the winter’s snow on a warm spring day. I am lost, lost without a cause.

Darkness; a sea of darkness. Darkness as far as my eyes can see; my heart is heavy with the load of emptiness. Despair gives way to hopelessness, tenacity soon becomes dread. I start my life alone.

A star appears before my eyes. A star burning so bright, it conquers the darkness. It takes my hand and guides through the lost wilderness of my spiritual prison. Finally, I can see once more. The land of promise and prosperity. The place I will start my life anew. My spirit once shattered, now whole again; my hope is now restored and I thank you for lighting my way.