I’M A BROKEN TOY

…When I woke up this morning, which was early, which was quite early in fact, I realized I’d been transformed into the body and being of Ryan Adams. Do you know him? Do you know me? No, not the “Cuts Like a Knife”--“Summer of ‘69” Canadian Bryan Adams, but Ryan—Ryan Adams.
That’s my/our(Ryan and mine’s) photo up there.
When I awoke, I scratched my big-headed hair, which was lopsided and such. I scratched my scrotum, too, first thing, because that’s what Ryan/I do first thing at dawn.
I caught a glimpse of my new self in a slice of mirror hanging over the ceiling of this bedroom and thought, Hey, wth?, I guess I’ve been cosmically turned into Ryan-freaking-Adams. Might as well go with it.
Mandy was in the kitchen. Mandy being my new bride, her of music and filmdom (“A Walk To Remember”) fame, her once a Britney clone but no more because just look at her, leaning over the stove, stirring something, wearing only a wife-beater (boy, that’s a terrible label) and pink panties, that famous face steamed with driblets of whatever it is she’s been attending to, her a minx just now, temporarily put on pause, but who knows about later.
I pulled out a cigarette--Winston. It’s what I do, smoking, because I’m weak that way and an addict, plus it keeps my voice smoky and croaky which is good when you do alt folk/pop like me. I sucked the cig down in less than two minutes. I don’t think I exhaled once. The fire felt good burning down my throat and roasting my innards.
I stared at the brick wall of my Soho loft and thought, It’s kind of the shit being Ryan Adams.
I reached over the side of the bed and grabbed my Taylor guitar and wrote a song, Johnny on the spot. It was the best song I’d ever written, and we all know how prolific I am, going all the way back to Whiskey Town and “Empty Baseball Park” and “Sixteen Days,” which are classic songs, way better than The Beatles or Def Leppard or Celine Dion.
This song, this one, was about mystic messages, how you can find meaning in the gaps, the silences, the spaces in between. Sort of like how the wind will tell you things if you press your ear in and try to hear. It was a nearly perfect song, both melodically and lyrically, and I thought you should hear it first and tell me your thoughts, so I recorded it and you’ll see it in the mail, certified, soon. Just don’t be offended if I’ve used too many personalized details about that tattoo you got when you were young, then removed it all on your own accord, how you said you were happy with your life and didn’t want any changes.
Sometimes songs are like poems that can seep. Sometimes they’re so real they’re like a second skin.
The truth is I miss you.