MY TEENAGE MUSIC ESCAPE AWAY FROM LIES

In my early childhood years spent on candies and video games, I had a thing for music. I always have. Still do even now. It was as much as my ears could bear the rhythms and the musical instruments used to create a masterpiece that made me escape harsh reality of obliterating truths. A mental escape somehow. A way to take a heavenly path towards a dream to become more powerful than the eating disorder chubby fellow I was that could barely slam a fly down because of a sense of injustice. Why would I end the life of a buzzing bug if I could not believe myself of how to change mine?

Was I that small to think I could be bigger… Was I really…?

The end of the nineties. Perhaps what I believe even now to be my golden age of growing up like a young clueless boy into becoming a fatherless teenager. Not long after I celebrated my fifth birthday, I was not seeing my dad anymore. He disappeared of my life. He never came back. I could always hear my older brother saying nothing but insulting adjectives towards my role model. I have seen my older sister becoming less of a woman raised by a loving father so she could turn more into a boyish lady-like fraud as she followed our non-feminine mother footsteps. There was someone missing. The one responsible for destroying our family, as it was being said many times.

Was I too small to understand what a woman would be different if she was not playing with Barbie dolls… Was I that gullible to believe it was simple to witness a mother wear the trousers of a father figure… Was I too ignorant upon my dad’s disappearance… Was I…really?

Still, growing up, my older brother felt it was necessary to hit me every time I was being a nuisance as a little brother. The same fate awaited my frail body each moment my mother dared to lift her hand at me so I could strictly understand I was about to get a beating.

Was I too short to be willing to escape what was coming from me…

But I longed for a flowery path of peace to wipe my tears off, a salvation to damnation, a heaven existence to a hellish subsistence. From time to time, I could have sworn I heard my dad’s footsteps, smelt his unique antiperspirant and aftershave, seen his light grey Renault 12 parked outside. But I could have only dream of listening to his favorite singer and pop star idol, Michael Jackson. One day, as I came back from school, I came across a Walkman while searching for toys to play with in the garage. I looked for batteries to switch on the audio device when I suddenly stomped into a broken plastic cover of a K7.

Was I suddenly falling into a daydreaming episode?

The K7 of Michael Jackson I nearly rendered unusable was on the concrete floor I stared at before I knelled to pick it up. There was a faint odor of known perfume I could recognize miles away since it was from the exact same brand my dad used to have. That K7 became then the closest father memento I had, and I couldn’t wait but placing the K7 inside the Walkman and putting the headset on, made of muffled material to protect my ears.

I then started to walk a pathway of silent singing, mumbling fades lyrics of a language I did not understand yet, stammering words I could not even pronounce perfectly. But I was so happy to hear the voice of the beloved million-fans singer. In France, there was no other French artist and singer that could match him that close.

I became affiliated then with popular titles such as ‘Billy Jean’, ‘Too bad’, ‘Thriller’ and more. But there was one track that kept me astonished even now by powerful lyrics and heart melting sensation: ‘Earth Song’. From there, I came to write my first poems while locked up in my bedroom, away from bullying brother, ignorant sister and selfish mother. Poems I wrote about my own suffering of missing my dad, about feeling all alone and angry at my family that never listened, verses of the right love I would meet someday to become a caring husband and loving father. Poetic rhymes and singing words became short stories of fantasy, science fiction, romance, and utopias. Such a pathway to escape a life I didn’t have the control of that made me lose friends after I proudly read my creations in front of the classroom. Praised by teachers, scolded by jealous kids, bullied by princes of the schoolyard.

Was I not normal enough like all the kids to walk back home with my Walkman, my playlist and my tears... Was I…really?

My angry side never took over as a mean to unleash a violent power of rage over the school tyrants and despotic bullies. It just served me as inspiration for more short stories as I remained lonely but befriending my imaginary heroes and villains.

Was I then displaying mental inability to remain socially active…

I could not dream of be social with anyone unfortunately. I was just asking myself too many questions and no one could ever answer but with lies.

I became slowly lost into a maelstrom of lies and deception, starting with my relentless family, lying to everybody, creating a new household based on deceptive truths that could never sound right to my ears, though should I have to learn how to lie myself for I will always be alone nonetheless. And I had. I could not tell the truth about the lies of my life, never knowing the reasons why my dad left, why my guardian angel pet dog had been given away, dog raised by my loving father to protect me and only myself. And more to it, why had I been groomed and abused by my perverted cousin without having him reported? It would have been a threatening truth that could break the only family my selfish mother believed in as she bailed on my father’s own loving family.

Was I by far not smart enough to get rid of lies by looking at the truth…

The only truth I knew was my means of coping, my playlists, my new songs, composed by French artists, American singers and British idols. The likes of Florent Pagny or Johnny Halliday, Black Eyed Peas and The Rolling Stones, the famous The Beatles, the king of pop Michael Jackson. They never left my side from Walkman to iPod, until I got my first smartphone years later.

I changed my life. Smartphones didn’t exist yet. I left the household and started to experience life after I graduated from college at the age of nineteen. While hoping on the train to travel miles away, I forever listened to my music, murmuring the lyrics of ‘Yellow Submarine’, taping my fingers against anything on the beats of ‘Thriller’, and singing loudly in hotel rooms the rhymes of many songs I loved.

Even now, I keep on listening the same songs as I added more that are less popular but more legendary when it comes to watch the movies again. I became fond of Harry Gregson-Williams, Hans Zimmer, the kind of artists that make your blood boils and your spine chills when it comes to hit your soul through powerful masterpieces such as The Last Samurai, Man of Steel, and more. Original movie scores then were part of my playlist as I keep on writing, working online, working out or even cooking alone.

It reminds me that truths about musical prowess can turn a life sank in lies into a fiery existence full of hopes and dreams that only the most utter determination can realize.

But I always knew that Michael Jackson songs will make me remember why I loved my dad. And why I still love him. After 30 years of being separated, him and I reunited again, and all the truths came into the light of the dark lies, sweeping them under the rug I now threw away in the former family garbage I had to confront then. My mother was always selfish and never desired me or liked me, as much as my sister and brother despise me still, because I learn about the truth about their mother.

Was I then so idiot then to believe all the lies I lived in, I listened to, I regurgitated…

My playlists helped me becoming a better person than I was, than I was intended to become if I were to follow the jealous family wishes to never look for my father.

Because the lyrics of my favorite songs got me to always carry the love of my father and never discard it, they made me meet him again after thirty years so I can learn the entire truth I should have known a long time ago.

The truth that I was loved by my father and that I deserved better.

The truth that M. Jackson was my dad’s idol as he listened to the singer songs every day.

The truth that I met my most unique love of my life that changed the meaning of my existence like I never imagined.

The truth that I write for people. I write for me. I write for her. I write for my father that always loved to write.