Never alone.

"Why weren't we given a normal childhood, like all the other kids?", they might ask. And at that moment, I pray that my children will give me the benefit of the doubt, that they will say to themselves: 'Our daddy did the best he could given the unique circumstances that he faced. He may not have been perfect, but he was a warm and decent man, who tried to give us all the love in the world." ~ Michael Jackson

Prince, Paris, Blanket...he will always be with you.

Will you be there?

The friendship between Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor spanned decades. Starting out carefully on the phone, because Michael was more comfortable that way, it turned into something so strong and so special that it would last their whole life through.

Our childhood shapes all of us, but when it is stolen from us, it shapes us even more. For the two of them, childhood didn't equal birthdays, basketball and friends. For the two of them, childhood equaled hard work, expectation, and the greed of adults that would only love you when you delivered the way they expected you to. This is something none of us on the outside could every fully understand. It is something that you can only truly understand the damaging effects of if you have lived it, and it is also through sharing your pain with someone that truly understands it that a true connection is established .

Elizabeth Taylor spoke of Michael often, and once said that she "doesn't think people understand how much they truly love eachother." Intensely, completely, and with the purity and innocence of the many children they both invited into Michael's Neverland, they shared each other's lives, and their connection is something I don't think could ever be explained in words, as much as they would praise eachother.

Everyone in this world have people they care about, and a part of that, is feeling whatever they do. We're happy for them when things go well, and we hurt for them when things don't go the way they planned. For Elizabeth, this was particularly true in the way that she was forced to watch someone closer to her than her own heart suffer, inhumanely, for decades. She watched a friend and someone who would never raise his voice be lied about, accused, and viciously attacked by an entire world. I am sure many nights were spent trying to soothe an calm his soul, and she fought tirelessly and passionately to clear his name. Because that's what friends do. They pick you up when you fall down and can't keep walking; they throw your arm around their neck, and they carry you, drag you if they have to, until you have come through your trials and tribulations safely on the other side. They cover your heart with theirs, they come running when you call, and most of all...they know the real you. In spite of facades, a million "I'm okay"'s and little white lies told by us to spare them worry...they see us. They see us, as we really are; perfect in all our imperfections, and they accept us. Fully, unconditionally, and with no strings attached, they share your life and everything in it, simply because you're you.

When you're the most famous person in the world and constantly have to defend yourself against the tabloids and lies of the world, that kind of relationship is difficult to establish. A person can only take so much before their trust in other people is forever damaged. But slowly, two hearts were opened to one another, and two people learned to share their laughter and their pain throughout everything the world would throw at them. Mockery couldn't touch them, lies couldn't touch them, and fabrication couldn't touch them. Because they had eachother, and they knew: "my heart is your heart, and whatever happens, I won't let go of your hand. My life is yours, my soul is yours, and I offer you everything I am. See me in all my imperfection, and love me anyway. Because life is bigger than what the world will throw at us to try to bring us down, and I am more than who they try to make me out to be." They had eachother, and through gut-wrenching pain and childlike innocence and happiness, they saw the key to what makes our time on this planet worth the effort. They saw...and they knew.

This world is not an easy place to live in. It can be cold, complicated, and scary, and people will hurt you if they can, simply because they're scared too. But if through all of it, you manage to find just one person that will tell you you can when everyone else says you can't...you're on to something. If you can find someone that makes you willing to ask the question, "will you accept me for who I am and not try to change me into who you would like me to be", someone that will tell you the truth without hurting your feelings, and who will fight for you with dignity and respect when you cannot because you are only human...you have seen a glimpse of what it's all about. If in this life, you can let your guard down once after having been hurt repeatedly, if you can still see the possibility of gaining understanding and tolerance for all that you are...it's worth it. It is. Because as someone very special once penned down on paper late one night up on the branches of his Giving Tree:

"In our darkest hour, in my deepest despair
Will you still care, will you be there?
In my trials, and my tribulations
Through my doubts, and frustrations
In my violence, and my turbulence
Through my fear, and my confessions
In my anguish, and my pain
Through my joy, and my sorrow
In the promise of another tomorrow...
I'll never let you part
For you're always...in my heart."

........
You were two of the most special people on this Earth. I looked to the sky today, and I could see him waiting for you. He is there, and he is waiting. Go now, and don't look back. Your heart is his, his is yours...and you are finally together. Thank you for everything you did, and for showing us what this life is all about. I will honor and remember you both in gratitude and respect for as long as I live. We miss you. 

"I see you."

"Close your eyes so you don't feel them
They don't need to see you cry
I can't promise I will heal you
But if you want to I will try."


Relationships with other people is something that has always confused me greatly. Life taught me from an early age that other people will hurt you if they can, and I've had severe trust issues for as long as I can remember. Because of what life has been like for me, the way I see the world and the people in it has very much become jaded and cynical. At the same time, I have always been so very compassionate. Sometimes too much, according to some. Alternating between despising humanity, and experiencing compassion to the point of tears for the suffering of an individual, is a very ambiguous way of being, but it's who I am. Sometimes I hate the world, other times I want to help. And tonight, because of some beautiful music and some truly good writing...I want to help.

I wish people could understand that they are never alone in what they are feeling. Whatever you are feeling...I have felt too. People take the words "I understand" far too lightly, but I really do. Life will never be perfect, but life gets better. I promise. Whatever you are going through...this too, shall pass. It's a cliché, it's old...but it IS true. Lean on friends, lean on music, lean on art. Something will see you through...somehow. Promise.

"Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty." (Mother Teresa)

It's my fault, I'm female

This article in the New York Times came to my attention earlier today. Reporting of the brutal (and recorded) gang rape of an eleven year-old girl, it is full of the little insinuations about the victim's responsibility in the matter that we have grown so accustomed to as a society.

The article, complete with pictures and details of the run-down trailer where parts of the assault took place, wastes no time in making sure the reader knows that this was not the vicious, conscious deciscions of eighteen boys and men; but something that just happened. As if the men in question were victims too; victims of oh-so-tragic and unfortunate events in which they ha no control. Those poor, poor boys, who will, like the article continues to mention, "have to live with this for the rest of their lives."

Well, guess what? Somewhere in America, now in a hidden location to avoid the media and the shameful glances of peers and town citizens, is an eleven year-old girl. Somewhere out there is an eleven year-old girl who, too, has to live with this for the rest of her life. A girl that not only very likely has physical damage so bad it will scar her for life, but whose innocence has been crushed and whose world has collapsed. Trust in adults, trust in men, trust in justice...all that may well be destroyed, or at best a massive task to build back up. And that's without the New York times deciding that things may have ended differently had she not worn so much make up or "hung around with boys at the playground." (Exactly, at the playground. She's a child.)

The article continues with the comments of "Ms. Harrison"; a neighbour whose opinion the New York Times somehow decided was relevant to the news value of the story. Ms. Harrison, clearly shaken, exclaims, "Where was her mother?", and continues along the publication's line of finding someone, anyone, to blame but the eighteen boys that carried out the rape of which the article is about in the first place. It is interesting how no one - while we're blaming the parents here - seems to be asking where her father was, but I guess this is just about the potential mistakes of females. It usually is.

And while everyone is wondering where the mother in question was while her child was being raped, no one is asking where the mothers or fathers of the boys and men were when their sons held a child down on a bed and the floor of  a bathroom while raping her and filming their abuse. But, as the article also mentions; one of the boys is a basketball star student, and one father is a school board member, and I guess we don't want to mess with those. They are, after all, popular, powerful men in powerful positions. The mother of the eleven year-old girl, on the other hand, is just female trailer trash; not worth more than the filthy sofa on which her daughter was raped. Well done, New York Times. I hope you're proud.


To sign the petition demanding the New York Times apologize for their biased reporting, please visit http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-the-new-york-times-to-apologize-for-blaming-a-child-for-her-gang-rape

Unintentional performance art

I promised myself I wasn't going to comment on the whole Charlie Sheen circus, but it's too socially and psychologicall interesting to ignore. And the reason I say that, is because for once; the media isn't in control. They're not making anything up to sell more, they're not writing half-truths...they're just waiting, like dogs, for their master to give them that bone.

Everything that's been printed about Charlie Sheen for the past few weeks has been what HE has created. Statements he has made, actions he's committed, information he's shared. Willingly, openly, and decadently. People are on the edge of their seats waiting for the next big thing, and he knows it.

Sheen registered on Twitter eight days ago, and his account reached one million followers in its first 24 hours alone. People love a trainwreck, and he is inviting us all to watch from front row. His vlog "Sheen's Korner" was set up after his downward spiral became newsworthy, because he knows people will want to hear what he has to say - but he is not about to help the mainstream media and daytime television earn their ratings. This is the Charlie Sheen Show, and he runs it. He calls the shots. Public intoxication, felony, and substance drug use are things the tabloids usually love to sniff out, but in this case they don't have to. In this case they don't have to; because he is offering it to them. Proudly. Because everything is "winning". Because HE is winning. Because tragic as his demise may be, what's even more tragic is the way the media and the general public are, once again, sensationalizing and indulging in it. We are sheep and simple-minded fools, so easily led to follow, and he knows it. He is holding up a giant mirror to us a society, showing us perfectly through his imperfection, what we have become. And we are too stupid to realize it. We will never learn.

"And the rain, when it comes, it tastes like nothing."



"I know what it's supposed to be like to be young
But it is not the way I thought it would be
My paranoia functioned like a broken mirror
To distort and destroy any clarity

I want you to give back to me
The child I never was
'Cause I believed what I was told
Like everybody does."

~ "L.O.S.", The Czars ~