Being that she don’t do anything by halves
It is only natural that Hardliner can be a smidgen obsessive
With stuff that she is into
Like Ponche Caribe crème liqueur – Pistachio
Rafa Nadal and Serena Williams – Tennis at 3 in the am
Come hell or high water

Though you can’t get your lazy but up to pray at 4

She gon ignore their jibe cause she is in the middle
Of her preamble –

Anywhoo – as she was saying – chocolate
Because you are not normal if you aint into chocolate
And then – there is MJ – the KING OF POP
Lawd have mercy – Umph!
Hardliner takes a pregnant pause at the thought of her
First and maybe only true love – Michael Jackson
Who she discovered at 9 years
He had her hooked with his dance grooves
Cute – shy smile and dem sparkly socks
And she stayed hooked until she was pushing 30

Now that is a grave to be reckoned with – Hardliner muses to herself
And it is only natural that ‘Man in the Mirror’
Is blowing up her dome right now – her Irates don’t do
Anything by halves either
Hardliner finds herself sweating bullets
As resistance to this breakthrough has already
Committed to a death do we part kinda fight
Sista gurl looks murderously at the shovel
That has magically appeared at her feet

Yall real foul – dredging up some Michael stuff
Like what is the purpose to all this?
The man is dead – let sleeping dogs lie

His picture was one was one step away from being
On your bible Boo
Don’t you think you have unresolved issues?
They respond in that smooth – dry manner of theirs

Oh – yall really gon on there?
A hymnbook aint a bible and adolescence don’t count
You are supposed to do unbelievably stupid stuff
From puberty straight through adolescence
And maybe dibble dabble in this stupidity
If you aint quite finished yet in your twenties
At 40 you wipe the slate clean!

Ahhhh – that would explain your manic chase of his SUV
Down the street from London’s Dorchester Hotel
You were 21 right?

Dang it – flat-lined!
Aint no come back from that one
Still Hardliner scrambles to pull together reasoning
From that cray cray moment in her life
What really happened waz – well – uh
Sista gurl got caught up in the hoopla of the moment
Just the knowing that the man who she had
Loved from the age of nine was in the very same area
Coupled with the electric atmosphere created by
Those rabid London fans – and aint no MJ fan
Like the ones from the UK
Well anyway – sista just went with the flow
And flew down the street – after a moving car –
Scrambled brain and breathless – with her heart in her mouth

Absentmindedly she salves her lips with her tongue
Michael is doing his thang in the background
Her dome is flooded with memories of Hardliner’s Moonwalker years
And sista can’t help but to smile as she thinks of that moment
Man – she actually chased after a car
She had been to an M.J. concert the night before
And girlfriend was still reeling from the magic
She was totally sprung and flushed with joy
It was still a good time to love Michael Jackson
Before the child abuse allegations and witch hunts
Before his face – well – Hardliner squirms inwardly
He still had a face then
Hardliner did not see his brokenness back then
She was into his Peter Pan persona – she saw what she wanted to see
She believed what she wanted to believe
Despite the signs that somethin’ with the brutha wasn’t right
A little cray cray has always turned Hardliner on
But since Michael did not do things by halves either
His cray cray crossed the tracks to shack up in Weirdoville
Not being able to stomach it – Hardliner finally…

Bailed ship – her Irates finish in a matter of fact tone

Why am I here – Hardliner asks softly
Reeling from the tidal wave of emotion breaking against her core
This hurts – it actually hurts
Hardliner stops digging and drops the shovel
She stands in the shallow hole she has dug
Not wanting to proceed any further
Michael is slaying his song – singing to her soul

“No message could have been any clearer
If you want to make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make the change
You gotta get it right, while you got the time
You can’t close your, your mind!”

For the first time in years feels his magic – familiar
Though not the same – it can never be the same again
Regret – maybe even remorse for those vacant years
When it was too painful even to look at him
The admission is as raw as raw gets
Some fans would want to excommunicate her for treason
Against the M.J Republic
But it hurt to see what he had become

Dark clouds have swallowed up her horizon
Why am I here – she asks again
Anger rides her tone as she is faced with a myriad of emotions
That man held a special place in her heart – she can’t explain it
Cause he was not her kin – she never met him
But felt like she knew him through his music
He touched her spirit in a very profound manner
Yet by the time he died she had long thrown away her huge scrapbooks
The doll – posters and the stub from the concert ticket
And buried her love for M.J. in a grave beyond her deepest deep
When he died she felt like she had lost a piece of herself
Sista wept grown ass woman tears
The body wracking – soul shaking kind
That more than anything surprised her
Because she underestimated just how much he had impacted her youth
It surprised her because she still found love there
Amidst all the disappointment
In his death Hardliner discovered that grief
Don’t give a shit about unmarked graves
It don’t care about lengthy expanses of time
Five years after his death it jarred her to learn
That in his natural state – he was virtually bald
His emaciated body was littered with needle scars
As well as scars relating to copious plastic surgery
Umph – she takes a deep breath
This truth still resonates deeply with her today
It has shed a new and authentic light on Michael
Revealing that the physical man wasted away

Again – why am I here?
She hurls frustration and sorrow at her Ocean

Pick up the shovel Boo
Scream your war cry
Dig up this grave to give your M.J. a proper send off

Hardliner looks down at the accursed shovel
Rationalising that she is a grown ass – three scores and ten
And then some – woman
This issue aint worth no breakthrough drama
She feels like some psycho

You have loved him for two scores and ten
Out of those three scores and ten plus Boo
But now you are discerning with mature eyes
The magic will never be the same again
You have to reconcile with the fact that you believed in a fallacy
And the man you loved never existed
He gifted you his music and moonwalk – nothing more

And since Hardliner don’t do anything by halves
She was the consummate Michael Jackson fanatic for over two decades
Well not the manic crying and pulling hair fanatic
Don’t get it twisted – but she was his ride or die chick
And when you are down for someone so hardcore
You take it personal when they are vilified

And so you internalised other person’s perceptions
And opinions of Michael
You allowed their harsh judgements to sully your image of him
Unless you also had and still harbour doubts about his innocence

Hardliner knows where they are going
And she don’t want no part of it
She throws the shovel to her feet once more
For what seems like an eternity
She looks out at the ocean breaking against the shore
A wild ocean blast hits her face
It’s salt assailing her nasal passage
Drawing tears from her eyes
Clarity can come in so many ways – she quips
As she wipes her eyes free of tears

What about the ones in your heart Boo
Her Irates bore in mercilessly
What is it that really disturbs you here?
Is it that you cannot believe that you left your heart vulnerable
To being touched so deeply –
Or that you judged and abandoned him only to find out
That he was a broken man who sold you a fantasy
And it took his death for you find compassion for the
Real man in the mirror

Hardliner doubles over as a swell of emotion
Threatens to carry her under
The only thing she can do now is to let rip her war cry
Pluck courage out of fear’s ass and pick up the shovel
Sista gurl starts digging
She digs up shame for doubting MJ’s innocence
And for judging him like millions world wide
She also digs up anger towards him for disappointing her
Hardliner realises that she set herself up for that one
He came to entertain her – not to be her knight in shining arnour
What he saw in his internal mirror aint her business
His secrets aint gats nothing to do with her
She realises that it is not her place to judge him
This here breakthrough is about coming out
On the other side with Michael – as it is about learning
That in finding compassion for a human being one must
Lose their emotional judgement of that person
Judgement is also an obstacle to the healing light of forgiveness

Sweat out in her warrior gear
Sista finally drops the shovel
It is done!
She looks out over her ocean
There is a Viking ship on that water – sailing towards the horizon
She smiles knowingly – dem Irates don’t do anything by halves
She raises the cross bow that has magically appeared in her grip
And loosens a fiery arrow
Hardliner watches her childhood fantasy sail
Into the horizon and onwards to Valhalla in a regal blaze
Adieu Mr. Moonwalker – I carry you in my heart – always

Nice – her Irates compliment and well done

Thank you