The Book of Love with Michael Jackson

Come Back To Me.

1980.

Who the hell did I think I was?

Who the hell did we think we are?

Blind love is what it's called. It makes you do a lot of stupid things like deciding at 19 to move to a completely different country with saved up money from waitering, tossing morning mail and talent shows.

Michael wanted to become an artist and me a song writer, both of us had high hopes of achieving our dreams. Throwing ideas back and forth and being each other's muses. All we need was each other in a environment of parents who absolutely despised our interests. Joe still had hopes of the family making it big even though the chances of that happening was unlikely. I remember the night Michael came to me with glossy eyes and tear stained cheeks. How I pulled his weak and trembling body through my bedroom window and held his head on my lap, pressing a cold washcloth on his bruised cheek.

"I'm tired of this shit," Michael muttered from my lap. "I want to leave."

I took a deep breath looking down at the side of his face. It wasn't the first time he talked about leaving and usually he wasn't serious about it, but now he sounds serious.

"Where are you planning on going?" I asked quietly.

"Paris," He breathed out, "It's the perfect place. The scenery, the people... baby, it's so beautiful."

Suddenly Michael sat up and pulled me onto his lap so that we were face to face and my legs rested besides each of his hips. With instinct I wrapped my arms around his neck.

"I want you to come with me—"

"Come with you? To Paris? Michael, I can't!"

He frowned, "Why not?"

"My parents, my sister-"

"They'll be okay, baby. We're adults now! If we were to leave they can't stop us. If we stay here then they'll suck all the creativity out of us. They want to live their dreams through us because our grandparents did the same thing to them. It's our responsibility to break the cycle." He stopped to cup my cheeks into his hands, "Let's do it. You and me, mamas. Us against the world."

And so we did. That whole week we secretly planned our escape. Gathered up all the money we had for plane tickets, packed our things and wrote notes to our family. Before we knew it, we were in Paris.

At first we were okay. Got a small apartment with a view of the Eiffel Tower. I got another waitress job and Michael became a mail man. During the day we worked our jobs and at night we stayed up drinking cheap wine. Speaking as if we were already Hollywood's power couple. Me being a Grammy award winning song writer and him the black Picasso. We were happy, full of life and anticipation for what's to come.

This all went downhill in a year.

The art Michael showed got rejected by different agencies. The first few times it was okay, shit happens. But when you hear 'no' a certain amount of times, you start questioning yourself and if you're good enough. The same was happening to me, what is considered IN in Paris is completely different in America. People don't want love songs, they want music to dance and get high too- not to mourn the loss of a lost love. Which is 95% of my written songs.

Muses was lost and the light inside the apartment dimmed, suddenly colder than usual even during the warm season. It was quieter if you don't count the daily arguments. Little things like leaving the toilet seat up to why do we have much less money than the month before?

Michael took it the hardest. Between the 2 of us, he was most creative with many different talents like singing and dancing but his heart always been with art, drawing and painting. People would always ask him, why don't you become a singer? And it annoyed him because singing reminded him of his cold hearted father so he avoids it like a plague. So he opens art with open arms because it reminds him of his mother, Katherine. Beautiful, peaceful, soft. Matter of fact, she sent a letter to us a week ago and it sat on the table, unopened. The last thing Michael touched before leaving.