He was the first one who was special in my heart

I had a poster of this image that hung in my bedroom. I kissed it every night before bed and after applying bubblegum-flavored Lip Smackers lipgloss. If you looked closely, you could see the greasy spot.

Like so many people my age, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" provided the soundtrack of my childhood. We loved him. I still don't know if Ericka has forgiven me for sending her to her room during the American Music Awards when Jackson finally took of his sunglasses. That's okay, because I am still a little bitter that she got a Beat It jacket knock off.

This is a page from my scrabook. A book that resides in a trunk upstairs in Fortress of Solitude. I wholly believed as an 11-12 year old that I would marry Michael Jackson. It was meant to be, I thought, because that's just how much I loved him. I was convinced it was only a matter of time before he and Paul McCartney showed up at my door, begging me to choose. I worried over how Paul would take the news that I loved Michael.


We need to invent a word to express the sadness and nostalgia that flows through us when someone famous dies, someone you never met but nevertheless played a role in your life and shaped the person you've become. Whatever that word is, that's what I'm filling. Not quite sorrow, different from sad, it's more than shock.

I wanted to say it's as though a piece of me died. But that's not true. A piece of me has changed, a relationship (dormant as it may have been in the last 23 years, though not as dormant as one might thing because the Jackson 5 have made my top 25 most played songs in iTunes for the past two years) has ended, and that always makes one a little bit melancholy.