US

Sometimes they come in our world and they fight, they're afraid of us.
Call out every name in the book, disrespectful, throwing shade at us.
Though for them we are real, just because, they play games with us.
Thought I'd trust you, now I know, don't be claiming us.


Fight to love, but with you, loves afraid of lust.
Like my heart, when it fights, and refused to trust.
Can't expect anything more, there's no change in us.
Betrayal repeats like the day, there's just pain with us.


M. Jones

Trapped

To the many women who spend their nights alone confined inside their own thoughts, 
Sad cause you're trapped in love with a man who says everything's your fault. 
So cold with his glare, face turned up, a fight within himself, 
Too bold, way to much pride to ever consider help.


So you hang on like holding on won't exist past him, 
Stealing your strength each day like the light when it dims. 
Yet..you keep on loving, nope,  she refuses to ever give up..
Even when he yells with raised fists she still yearns for his touch. 


Forget the tears, the scars,  and the many nights it rained,
confused all the time mistaking love with the pain. 
He doesn't change but she changes without even knowing,
Still looks at the mirror and swears her face is glowing. 


Body weak, crazy thoughts, all she's thinking is he played me.. 
never once thinking of all she'd become, too busy calling him baby.
Scratching records, breaking cycles, for what when it's all the same..
Distraught in his idea of love, still hope to get his last name. 


Blinded by his used up lust, you'll do anything for his attention, 
Even stick by his side, see him through that ten year prison sentence.
You only know loss so you never win, never release his hand..
She never loves herself enough to ever leave this man.  


By, 

Michelle D. Jones

The Midnight Train Part II

For the longest moment he stood frozen.  There were so many thoughts rummaging through his mind, so many emotions running rapidly with no place for expression.  Any other man would have left when the voice spoke from behind the door.  But not this man, not this train rider.  He had came there for purpose, to win back a love he never let go of, yet had walked away from and left.  It had been years, he realized that now, at least four years since he had last touched her face in the wee hours of the morning.  Still, he never imagined that she wouldn't be there.  He had so many times previously broke the hearts of women who loved him, just to return to them later, sometimes weeks later, to meet them with wide open arms.  This is how women love after all.  He knew that, knew that they would hold on to love long after their lover had checked out.  Four years, maybe that was too long.  He sat and contemplated knocking on the door again.  

Immediate feelings of loss turned into anger, and he fumed inside knowing he wouldn't have what he came to get.  He needed her to at least understand what caused him to return.  Why after so long his heart led him to board the last train to the East Side of town in search of the only women who moved him.  No other had compared.  He had convinced himself after meeting and sleeping with hundreds of women across the world that no one, not one had moved him like her.  She was his one.  She was the woman he had dismissed as an after thought and then awoke realizing he wouldn't live without her.  One part of him told him to move on, to turn around and carefully walk down the frozen street back to the train station.  At this point, a cab would be better, but still he remained, in the cold, feeling it's sting like the mark just left on his heart.  

For some reason, he placed his ear to the door.  He imagined a short whimper barely audible escaping her lips yearning for him.  Instead he heard the wind.  He knocked.  Then stepped back.  Shifted his feet from right to left, then left to right before shoving his hands inside his pea coat.  He looked above and noticed the light was still on in that bedroom.   He shook his head, lowered it in shame and knocked again.  He could hear the footstep thumps increasing in sound the closer they approached the door.  There was a hesitation.   The outside lamp blindly intimidated him and he squinted at first reaction.  The door opened and there she was, a shiny black revolver in front of his eyes.  All imaginative thoughts dissipated as reality threatened his last breath.  "Step away from my door step." the voice said sternly.  Shaken by the thought of getting shot, the train ride spoke "Wait a minute, I didn't meant to cause this type of trouble.  I'll leave now."  His facial expression half attempted to appear apologetic as if he never hated him just moments before.  He had hated the voice without even seeing his face.  He wanted to be the voice at that moment.  The train rider moved as quick as he could down the city sidewalk, slipping a few times, but focused directly on what was in front of him and not what was behind.  

He heard a door slam.  His world, completely lost.  At this point nothing he had earned or worked for during his disappearance was worth that reaction.  The Icy sidewalk.  It appeared before him as a warning to be cautious, had always been here throughout the entire scene as if it knew what the outcome would be.  He wondered why as he walked down the street, why he wasn't willing to die for love.  Why he hadn't challenged the man who stood before him, king of his abandoned castle.  She was worth fighting for, but he had fought enough battles of his own war that he couldn't see one with her.  Not his love, not the one.  He wanted to cry.  Confused like a lost soul, he wandered up and down the streets.  But instead of crying he chose instead to laugh inside.   He remembered the gun, the shine it had.

He hadn't used it.  the voice had pulled it, but didn't use it.  He gave him another chance, a chance to come back again and this time he'd be prepared.  He wasn't going to give up.  Not after that long ride through downtown, the six block walk over the bridge, and passing two hoodlums, a drug addict, and a sleeping cop on duty in his patrol car.  He was yearning for love and decided at that moment he'd get what he came for and finish what he started. 

By,

Michelle D. Jones 

In Love With A Man

In Love with a Man

If only there was a way to express what I feel today, I know you would understand

I know you would feel me.

I can't compare the love I have for you against the beauty of the sky,

For at night the sky has a dark side of deceit and you my love

Always shine oh so bright.

I think it’s the way you rhythmically walk, or maybe it is the beautiful dark skin

You wear so well; either way I am feeling you, I yearn for you.

Somewhere in between lust and love I became trapped between your sexy brown eyes

For they educate me seductively.

Who says a man can't be sweet?

While you are romantically intriguing me with your conversations

I am constantly in slow motion; I am constantly awaiting your arrival.

If only you can see my dreams of you then you'd know...

It's the way you hold me, it's the way you love me slow, just can't let go.

I am so ready to move forward and my only wish is with you

Loving me passionately on warm sands beneath the moon.

And maybe you'll never get it; maybe we'll never meet the sands

Awaiting the days patiently to say I'm in love with a man.

By Michelle D Jones

Can I Speak On It?

Last weekend I remember you coming to me telling me that you are marrying your
man,
did you know yo man can't walk on his own.
Before you he was living off of Meeka on Bush Street
Before her it was Tanya on Lawson Street
I see him all the time walking the streets with nothing to do.

He the type of brother pick pocketting a drunken man
or the one that would never take responsibility for his own seed.
But thats yo man, and now you carrying his baybe.  Girl he got 7 other
kids stored on Grotto in a subsidised duplex.  The floors covered with
roaches, the children sharing beds,pissy at that, I sat there a few times and
watched... he never shows up.

I know you dont like nobody telling you bout yo man ..but
girlfriend swing yo weave if you want to; by midnight he'll be pulling it out
and stepping off to see Marie, she the one with 3 kids by him on Selby.
He use to be tough , till the system got at em, took everythang he had, now he
trying to make a come back off you.  I know you declare yoself a strong black
sista..

but dookie braids dont make you African and yo job at Walmart won't get you far.
Wait till he see yo pay stub you gone get it.......2 kids, 5 abortions, herpes,
and an aids scare but
it was just a fever.

You have been played and now represent what every "man" is looking for....
Somebody to be his support system.
Let his butt fall down.
Michelle "Pineapple" Jones

My Lover, Her Man

Lost words lost love,  the big city lights are dim.  Thoughts of another time ..when I had everything and everything made sense.  Hours before the struggle I felt you pull away.  Bold enough to face the consequences of the. Choices we made long after midnight.  Those hours where most lovers sleep, as we once did when love existed.  The sun rose and definitely brought amongst the anger of the heat.  Moving so fast away from each other and still never found the opportunity to cool down.  We know where this is going.  When the bags began to fill with your belongings and phone calls went unreturned at four AM. 

Goodbye,  but maybe not, I'll always want to return even long after your love has faded for me.  We pass around love like confused predators ..unsure who to love,  we begin to sample those unlike what's familiar.  Today I want you..tomorrow I'll realize why hating you became relevant in the first place.  We started this all and let it fall apart right before we had a chance to reach a higher potential.  Look at all we invest in love and look at how much more we lose.  This is when time is your enemy ..where every moment you walk in life reminds you of the only lover you yearn for.  Drying tears for silent cries ..remembering why all those years before I'd never let you go..  because we chose this and because you loved me.  But now you love her.  My lover.. His lover.. Her man.