Quest for Fire IV: The Need to Love...

...grows strong in this one. Real strong. People of the world, at this moment I literally have my fist in the air in the name of love. Push it up with me. All Love. That's what I'm feeling right now.

People all over the world need it right now. Somebody's in a crisis, looking for the love of a hero to help lift their burden. Someone is at the mercy of life, looking for love in the dark heart of oppression for a measure of grace. Somebody's beaten, looking for the love of a comrade to become their crutch and usher them to the next plateau. It's gonna take love to make the sacrifices that need to be made.

There's a brotha out there working, giving his all to be the best man he can be, looking for the love of his family to press on. There are children out there wondering if they're worthy of love, trying to understand why their parents aren't there for them. A young girl is letting lust rap in her ear right now, wondering if this is the love she seeks to fill the void her father left; I need to tell her, "there's more love in the passing kind words of a stranger than in a night of cheap pleasure! And yes, you are beautiful..." ...Maybe in the house down the street, a young boy doesn't believe in love after seeing his father abuse his mother, then watching his mother cry alone for so many nights. His heart is as cold as the heat in his pants. On the corner across from his post, an elderly woman attempts to cross a New York City street with her walker... The opportunities we miss when we let go of love!

An old lovebird is fading away from missing his other half, but she's passed on. What a slow and painful death! Meanwhile, hearts in Hollywood get broken every week... but the show must go on, and love becomes an act to keep up with popular opinion and press. Why not degrade yourself on the silver screen when everybody thinks love is a joke! Marriage is a mere game--- an engagement meant to be broken! Tinseltown must be a lonely place...


I don't know if everybody out there feels me yet or not. Something inside me makes it so that I need to love! I think I'll die if I don't love. Heh... as I go about my daily, I tell one girl how beautiful she is to me. I tell another one how I love her voice. I tell another one how she makes that dress look so nice. But don't think ill of me when I approach women and seem a little amorous. See, when I was a teenager, there was a lot of lust inside me. But you know what? I think it was bigger than that. Cuz when the smoke finally cleared and the hormones finally came down, I still felt the need to show love. Sex is so small in the face of love. You don't know the satisfaction I get from simply giving a compliment and bringing a smile to someone's face; you don't know how painful it is for me to withhold loving words when they come to me. Any love I can show, I wanna do it. I hafta do it.

Brotherly love is just as important. And when I say "brothers" I mean all men, no matter the race, creed, custom... because we all live here, we all affect each other. Love is bigger than all that. When I come across the brothas, I throw my head up to acknowledge em, even the ones I don't know. I put up two fingers in the spirit of brotherhood. I dap cats down, pound fists, shake hands and one-arm embrace cats to let em know I'm wit em. See, love is something that has to be injected into this loveless world. I show love to brothas to give them the courage to show love to others; I live love before them to show them that that hardness they exhibit is a handicap to their manhood.

Agape love, intimacy of friends, brotherly love, amorous love, and yes... even eros when the time comes. All Love. See how the world needs it! And just as much as the world needs it, that's how bad I need to show it.

And as I think on this love... when I think of it... I feel this burning in my chest...