God damn, I feel like crying.
The poet Sapphire wrote this poem for her collection Black Wings & Blind Angels in 2000.
I found it incredibly moving when I first read it and I thought I'd post it now.
The poem works to piece together some of MJ's troubled psyche. It may seem controversial, but hope no one takes any offense.
***
Neverland
I remember Michael Jackson
perfect shiny round brown button
of a boy, who just wanted to dance,
& dance he did, like light spinning
in shoes--
turning turning
till his reflection
arrests him & he stops.
Michael stops in front the mirror
and says:
I will
I have the will
to change
My face
I want my face different.
He looks at his nostrils flaring
fire like horses & his lips & his chin
& his eyes & his cheekbones
& he says I want, I want
a nose that glows white, that glows thin
& long & white.
I want it & I shall
have it!
Everybody wants it, so shut up!
It's just everybody can't have it is all
But I can have it.
I can have it.
Why does he hit me
& I'm a millionaire?
Why does he hit me & my feet are the golden eggs that bought
the farm, the ranch, the mansions,
the zoo?
Why does he hit me?
I'm so very smart
I buy those old songs of John & Paul
& Ringo & sell 'em for dog food
commercials. I am rich.
I don't want to be hit
Do you hear me Father?
Father
I pray
I am devout
vegetarian
Jehovah's Witness
I dance till I collapse
in a pool of lost sex & sweat
I light the world
Platinum boy
channel
singing "Billy Jean"
"Thriller"
I sell sell sell
my success is phenomenal.
I have a friend. He is a Witness too.
He doesn't eat meat either.
We are special as fresh carrot juice
& the maids who turn
back our sheets.
He is a lightning boy
& when I'm with him I'm not the scarecrow
or a billion dollar brown wind-up doll
I put my tongue on him
taste the life in his nipples
penis
he is splendiferous
Father, NO!
I'm a millionaire
I have houses
get
Get that faggot out of here!
His fist rearranges my sight
& for a while all I see
is his voice writing
like the blimp he is
across the sky:
There'll be no freakish shit
in this house
What are you!
What are you!
Some kinda fairy-ass
faggot!
No, Father
no father.
I wrap myself in a sparkling white glove.
A hand I reach out that touches no one,
separated now like I am from the soft
velvet of his balls,
hard round of his chest
memories erased like chalkboards
in elementary school
like the questions in the early years to Barry
about where all the money went.
I'm vacant now, a channel.
Still it fills me sometimes
like wanting something more than
monkeys & a ranch
& I just dance harder
till I pass out
& I pass out ever time
the semen
the spirit rises up
like a shaman & takes my soul
under the lights
& I'm not human. I'm a phenomenon
a miracle of motion going back to Indiana
Los angeles Motown light sound
breaking into a tornado
of rhythm
wanting wanting
what I can't have.