(audience applaud)
- The day Prince died.
Everyone said you were his biggest fan.
You never did.
You loved his music too much to ever think
no one could love it more than you.
You talk about his vocal range for days,
how he could start a note in one galaxy
and land it in another.
How we discovered planets with his songs.
Planets where the lakes were lavender,
where the wind made the sound of a B-side hit on vinyl.
Where everyone was six inches shorter without shoes.
In high school you'd sneak out of Iowa
and drive to the dark to concerts
in his home at Paisley Park.
By the time you were 18, you knew more about his drummer
than most people know about themselves.
When we met, you were saving pennies
to take red eyes all over the continent.
Each time someone in the know said
he'd be gracing the stage of some tiny venue at 3:00 AM
in Chicago, Minneapolis, LA.
I'd be at brunch in Colorado when you'd call
to say the show had just ended after three encores
that unraveled the axis of earth.
I remember the sound of your sweat through the phone.
On the 56th morning you spent dancing to the dreams
of a man who learned to play 27 instruments on his own.
The first birthday present I ever gave you
was a skateboard I'd painted with the sheet music
to "Purple Rain".
I didn't yet know true Prince fans don't listen
to "Purple Rain", they listen to the silence
outside of volts of unreleased songs,
believing the songs could save their lives
and swearing they'd rather die than press their ears
to a single chorus without his permission.
Respect I learned was the first rule to loving someone
who would erase his own name so it couldn't be sold.
You said when you were near him,
you wouldn't look at him too long.
Taught your eyes to hang back,
gave him more space than the moon,
which is to say he was your gravity.
He was much of the world's gravity.
He kept people here.
I don't remember why we couldn't get seats together
on the plane, but I do know
I was exactly 16 rows behind you
when the wheels touched the ground.
When we pulled up to the gate,
when the pilots voice came over the speaker,
"Folks, we just received word that Prince has died,"
I crawled over the seat in front of me.
I was crawling over the next.
I was almost 14 rows away when a mob of passengers
screaming they were late for their destinations too
refused to let me pass.
I'd never in my life been so far away
from anywhere I needed to be.
When I found you in the terminal, it was his pain,
not yours, rushing from your eyes.
The thing about loving a stranger is you can guess,
but you can never be sure what they are privately surviving
on their journey to help others survive.
I'm just so grateful for him.
You kept saying, "I'm just, I'm just so grateful for him."
I scare a running lines down your cheeks
like you come to wipe your tears
and left his guitar strings behind.
I was scheduled to go directly from the airport
to meet a friend who was grieving the death of her mother.
There was no way you would've let me stay with you.
But a whole universe exists in the moments I spent
weighing what to do and I still visit that universe.
On days I give up on being an artist.
I go back to your bedroom in 2006,
where you are laying every album he ever made on the carpet.
Each record is a blueprint of you.
In the corner now is a man, half angel,
and skyscraper shoes.
I watch him watch you flip his vinyl to the B side
and drop the needle into the groove.
I watch him watch you watch my face
as his music hits my chest.
I watch him close his eyes and rest.
(gentle music) (audience applaud)