In the limbo.

“Sweet pain! What delicious strains came from its small mouths.
Sing to me, she whispered, sing! She needed more, and more.”
Songbirds of Pain

This would be one of the many letters I swore I wouldn’t let you read, but due to the extreme need to let out all overflowing emotions that threaten my sanity, I will insist on doing it.


Dear Mr. Mill,
It’s been a long time since I thought of writing you again. A lot of things had happened, we had our own version of a fall out and quite frankly, it’s not nice. Not nice as all the other things happening over the past month or so. I have read my March 16 letter to you, a letter a day short of making it to its 4th month anniversary. The issue I have been fondly talking about in that letter quite stayed. And I guess – or believed? – that it has stayed for too long. Far too long that I’m starting to think of it as a shame.

You know, it’s funny that in this life of ours, people lovingly associate happiness with an object, a pet, an event, a place, a date in the calendar, or worst, a person. And more often than not, it is funnier to realize that we have all spent a huge portion of our lives trying to stick to that so called “happiness” that we conjured and crafted ourselves, a happiness we come to know, that we are used to know. But we all know that happiness is not something concrete, it shouldn’t even be a person but as we all know, we make that mistake more times than we can even imagine.

I don’t try to sound like an expert on all this association-with-happiness-to-something-must-be-insane, in fact, I am guilty myself. When you have found yourself cynical and skeptical for far too long in your life, you would soon find a way to believe that there should be something or someone out there who would make it all go away. And even though you’re someone who doesn’t believe in practically anything – even yourself – it is a tough thought to make and an even tougher one to admit. Then there it is – the flicker of hope suddenly bursts light into your dark world and the leap of faith you took, despite you cynicism, came to life. And you are unstoppable. You swear to life, you’ll never be cynical or skeptical ever again. You will change. You will give everything a chance but then again, you still hasn’t believed in happy endings in stories. Life is not a fairytale. The light soon starts to fade, followed by a long moment of silence, a gap in two worlds that used to fit and meet perfectly. You can’t pinpoint what went wrong, but you know deep down inside that it’s you. It has been you, it was always you.

It was you because you believe one more time, you allowed yourself to be vulnerable. It was you because you are such a failure. It was you because you trusted that this time would be different. It was you because somehow you can’t just live up to your damn egoistic statement that one day you’re gonna be the one who walks away intact. It was you because you never found the courage to just drop this happiness and like any normal person, just move one from your failed expectation, and in this rare case, failed reality. It was you because you are just like everyone – weak, fragile, gullible, and easily manipulated. You always try to think positively, you blind yourself consciously like everyone else that’s in the limbo. It was you.

So you see, Mr. Mill, it’s not easy to be human. It’s not easy to live and at one point or another, you would secretly wish that you become the Tinman and swear that you’ll never wish for a heart – just remain an innocent, feelings-free robot.