Take It All Away

Dear Adam, You’ve changed over this year. There have been both good and bad reviews of it, at least from your fans. I’m sure that the critics will love this. Me? I love the new music…but I will miss you, my friend. I will miss how we waltzed through the forest. I will miss the day we spent submerged. I will miss our high hot air balloon rides without a care in the world. I will miss staring up at the stars at three in the morning waiting for a vanilla twilight to herald dawn. I will miss falling gracefully through the sky. I will miss our dances through the velvet sky. I will miss the breeze through the satin air. I will miss walking down by the bay on the shore. I will miss wading through a Miami night. I will miss that ruby glow as I listen to your music and imagine a world in which the whimsical is the reality and life is crystalline and lovely. I used to never see the ground. I was lost among the clouds, filled with bliss. Oh, how blue the sky could be if you really looked. How perfect was a simple blossom. How perfectly the world fit together, just you, me, and the music we all felt. Life was never as it seemed. So soothing, so perfect…I could drift off in a sailboat made of clouds, stitched together by piano chords and sweet words. When nothing else was right, you held me in your arms and sang me to sleep. Life became a waking dream of the sweetest, purest quality. It was the Technicolor phase of my life. I was never afraid of the darkness. I could be anything…everything…I was everything…and you were a part of it all. You were the key to my heart, the stone that held up the arch, the jewel in the crown. All was perfect, all was beautiful. Yet we’ve never known each other. You were my hero, and still are. You love…respect…dream. Let me paint a scene. You have found the most perfect place in the world. The ocean is a deep blue green and gently lapping at the shore. It stretches on for miles until the heat mixes with the air and the horizon blurs. High above, the sun blazes while the sea gives off a cool breeze. Sailboats lazily drift along the horizon, a bright dot against the majestic blue sky. You can wander along the shore feeling completely safe. If you walk far enough, it blends into a city. The skyscrapers look like they are made of crystals. People walk contented through the streets, birds soar high up above. This is not the picture I have painted all on my own. You painted it for me, guiding my hand until a wonder was revealed before my eyes. Now…2012, bright lights, modern issues, gleaming skyscrapers…and us, the dreamers, caught in its middle. We’re shipwrecked in a sea of faces. We have no choice but to change. I suppose that’s the way it goes. I’ll hang the clouds above my town and try not to shed a tear when you disappear. I am afraid I might lose some part of myself. Hello, world…do you like me? I am who I am. And I’m a dreamer. I will always hold the past years close to myself. You can always find me on the beach, eyes closed, with my ears filled with music and nostalgia. May I never forget you. May I never refocus my eyes in the darkness. May I read this one day and be filled with memories. May I once again hear the sweet chords and think, “This is me. This is you. This is all of us.” I will embrace this…but I will miss you, my friend.