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. Your loving fan, Jessica

Everywhere you go, they're there. No matter how peaceful you are, no matter how polite, civil, and reasonable you've been, they still point the finger, dripping with acid hatred, and accuse you. At night, they plague you in your sleep. They start to rub out the line between truth and lies and you desperately chalk it back over- but how long until the stick runs out? Why can't they just leave? And all through this, you are constantly reminded that they think they are right. They were raised to hate you. This choice you have made, you were aware when you made it what it would mean. An outcast, banished to the minorities forever. I am constantly bugged by these people. Why? Because I was never one of them. Oh, I tried. And they hate me for that. They claim otherwise, but deep down...it's just because I'm different.

Thunder crashes above my head And you’re miles away As I lie safe in bed And you’re like the sea So deep, breathtaking, and full of mysteries How could you ever understand a person like me? Every day I think of you Of the way you think, and how you see life You don’t walk down the same road that I do. I would love to know you as the person you are Some days, I can feel you close Others, you watch me from your distant star. I feel so boxed in; whereas you’ve learned to fly I’m trapped by the future But I really don’t know you; have I ever asked why? I can understand all that you’ve done But you’ve never met me How could you please everyone?

Why do people write? Why do I write? Why do people leave behind legacies? What if I lived a life that was an enormous lie, and then posthumously confessed? Why should anyone listen to other people’s opinions? Why do we believe anything that sounds good? What if everything was true, so nobody lied? Would they be lying if they thought they were? What makes a lie a lie? Is it the intention, or the misinformation? Don’t we get fed misinformation day after day, and then it gets disputed? Who lies, and who tells the truth? Would it only be a lie if you meant it to be? What if you give out misinformation you truly believe in? So, is an urban legend a lie or a misconception? Was it a lie at the beginning? If so, wouldn’t that make it a diluted lie? Or are lies multiplied, not added? Can one use lies instead of numbers? What makes the truth right? What is the real difference between true and right? Is right correct, the thing to do, or moralistic? Is true simply not false? Or is it the place with the least shadows where we can reside? Are we ever completely 100% certain that something cannot be disputed? Don’t we always have a little cloud of negatives at our shoulder? Wouldn’t the negative just attract the positive and create a confusing mass of neutral statements? Is anything ever neutral to anyone? Doesn’t every statement create a reaction in somebody? Can anybody answer all my questions? Would I believe your answer? Or would your answer just leave me hollow and ringing with regret that nobody truly knows? Please let me know if you can answer any.

Hello there. I’m a Drifter. What is a Drifter? In truth, it’s probably something only I know about. Most people say there are two types of people in the world. What they are is up to them. Me, I’ve always said “Introverts and Extroverts”. But there’s probably another type. There are never two major groups of anything. There are always the minorities you have to consider. Extroverts are how most people are, or act. They want nothing more than to get out of their heads. Introverts, on the other hand, try all the time to get inside their heads. But there are probably also Drifters: people who have always been inside their head, or Introverts who succeeded. Once you get in your head, you discover it is in fact pretty big. It’s like a whole other planet to be explored, with tons of life to be catalogued and named, if you’re that sort of person. I just want to see everything, to “taste every flavor in the bowl”. But I’m pretty sure there are more than 52 homemade flavors. Along with the Drifter minority, there are those people who know what’s in their head, and chose to do something with it; a productive type of Drifter. I suppose crazy people just can’t deal with what’s in their head, so they literally went out of their minds. Maybe we’re all crazy. I’m sure Extroverts would agree. Back to Drifters. Instead of a planet teeming with life, it’s a mind teeming with thoughts. I don’t like to classify thoughts; I like to see what they’re about. Thoughts are easy enough to examine, cherish, and maybe even have again. But it’s hard to bring thoughts out into reality, voice is so limiting. Then they’re just like a scar. A scar on the hands that you do everything with. Scars are rather ugly. After a time, though, no one but you notices. Nobody cares to look at the hand they shake. I shake palm-down. People just walk away, carrying those heavy briefcases that must carry their hearts, because their mind is too busy thinking about the next appointment. Or that car crash in this morning’s paper. But I wouldn’t know. I’m not a gray-suited businessperson. I’m not a local artist who never cares about anything except their next painting. I’m not a spunky, purposely off-beat, chain-wearing, gum-chewing teenager. It might be easier just to say who I am, or might be. I’m a shy, out-of-tune, bookworm of a tidy Drifter girl with a passion for learning and thinking, at least when I’m myself. I like to think of myself as a mirage, subject to change without notice and never really there. Perhaps that’s why, when I’m thinking or Drifting particularly far, I tend to grip something without noticing. I’m just a mirage With a wish to be solid… I’m just a dream With a longing to be a memory… I’m just a story With a hope to be history… Intangible, yet so lifelike You can almost touch it Before it dissolves in the rain I can’t help the poetry. It has to be written down, or it’s lost. Sometimes a thought is so clear, so perfect, and so ideal that it must be preserved. It’s not a talent, it’s a method. Human weakness has some advantages. Then the music seeps in. A little collection of Introversion, Extroversion, and Drifting, all with the mutual need for expression. Am I the first conscious Drifter? Possibly. Am I the only one? I hope not. Drifters are so like Introverts, it’s hard to tell.

Another rant about the suckiness of the internet...I'm not sure where I stand on this subject. I mean, we do have the right to express our dislike on the internet, but some of it's getting out of hand! Anyone who dares like anything popular is instantly rated down and extremely hurtful comments are hurled at them. On the other hand...pop stinks. Quality went in the garbage, along with human voices. Most people just don't do their best anymore. I love nothing more than to express my opinions on music, but some people really get out of hand.

Ugh. I was looking at Owl City pictures on the internet, and I saw one attached to an article about how he APPARENTLY steals music and album art from other people. People commenting said they hated him, based on the few (untrue) facts in that article! If he'd ripped anything off, there'd be a lawsuit by now! It's been four years! It makes me furious to see this mindless, lie-based hatred of something i love. These people scorn everything about him, just because he doesn't sing about the crap that's popular now! It makes me sick.

Wow...I was just reading the comments for the saltwater room by owl city (HUUUGE fan), and it mirrors my most precious memory perfectly. I was once alone with my crush. And I began to think that he liked me back. Soon, I could tell just from the way he kept looking at me. As the song says, what will it take to make or break this hint of love? Only time, only time. I'm so scared now that I've broken it. So tell me darling, do you wish we'd fall in love? All the time.

Secrets I see nothing when I look into your eyes But behind mine a treasured secret lies There is something you should know It's beauty is subtle like newfallen snow Find the courage within your heart To make complete what I can not start And maybe then will I be content If only you could recieve what is not sent