TerikKing.com

Dear Michael,

Where to begin? ‘Happy Birthday’ seems as appropriate a place as any, but for the first time in over 20 years, your birthday is not a happy occasion for me.  Every August 29^th for as long as I can remember, I had a ritual: I would put on your music for a minimum of three hours, throw a video or DVD into the player so I could see you, and I would dance and sing and celebrate you. This year, I can’t bring myself to do it. Ironically, this is the year when more people than ever seem to be doing just that.

I checked Facebook. Every other “status” has a “Happy Birthday MJ ‘King of Pop’” or something to that effect. It recalled to me the way that I felt last year, in 2008, when you had turned 50, and I looked high and low for a tribute show or club night where I could go to celebrate you hitting your 50-year mark. I couldn’t find any. I was deeply upset, but did my “ritual” anyway. Fuck ‘em, I thought, I know who the greatest is, and I don’t need to gather in any crowded room to pay respects to my guy. Now, one year later, the tributes gush like waters of a mountain stream. They’re everywhere. And although I have had people in my life tell me that I should take heart at this posthumous, belated show of reverence for you, I can’t bring myself to do it. I’m so goddamned ANGRY.

When you left, a part of me shattered. I was no good to anyone for about six weeks. I’m still kind of “out of it” to a degree. Functional, yes, but I most certainly am NOT the same.

You were my North Star. I always felt, since I was a little boy, that if I could follow your light, I could find my way out of any wilderness. Your light showed me to my voice. Your light guided me when my family left me for dead. Your light has kept me moving in the “right direction” through everything – from the ghetto, to the group homes, through abusive relationships – everything. I’ve so often said that if you weren’t you, I have no idea who I would be. And I mean that with my very soul.  My biological father has been as good as dead to me for a very long time now, and my mother not too far behind. But there was always you. And now…there isn’t.

Where is my guiding star now? What have I got to believe in now? I feel so lost. And, again, so ANGRY. I’m angry at that goddamned coconut Conrad Murray who killed you. (He’d better HOPE he’s sent to jail. If he isn’t, I just might kill him myself.) I’m angry at the people who so shamelessly, ghoulishly and transparently are capitalizing on your murder with their commemorative magazines, bootleg t-shirts, eBay “e-book” scans of your work that they are hawking for money, and the endless media coverage. I’m angry at your family for not finding a way to lay you to rest and still allow the millions of people worldwide who TRULY loved you to pay their respects to you. I’m angry at the people who didn’t feel any sympathy in their heart for all that you endured over your lifetime until it was too late. I’m angry at the hypocrisy of this world that you have left me in. I’m so angry I just don’t know what to do with this boiling rage. I am, as you were, a slight ‘sliver’ of a man, and it feels as though I have more anger than I have space in this body to contain it. I don’t know what to do with it.

I’ve lost even MORE faith in humanity since you were taken from my world. Not that I had much to begin with. See, that’s what humanity does. Humanity is given a gift, and they abuse it, destroy it, kill it, and then pat themselves on the bad for feeling “sorry” afterwards. I won’t stand for it this time.

A very wise person in my life said that a good way for me to view losing you was that “Maybe Michael had to die so that YOU could LIVE in a way that you never had before.” I didn’t really buy it at the time, but I’m beginning to internalize that charge. My mission, and I choose to accept it, is to continue to spread the truth about all that you meant to us as a world. This world was never worthy of you. You were too gentle a soul; a rose in a garden of weeds. I always wished that you would FIGHT for yourself more. But now that you’re gone, I will fight for you, and I won’t be gentle. That was your M.O. You were a poet – I’m a warrior. You will be GENUINELY, TRULY respected Michael. I will hold the feet of the hypocrites, parasites and demons to the fire. I will educate people about what they have done to you, and to every other gift that they were given. Or I swear on my life, I will die trying.

Rest easy, Michael. You’ve done your part. Now it’s my turn.

I’ll love you eternally.