Guitar Strings, Warrior, Glue, Garden Fairy, Wanted and Airplane

Mister Guitar Strings,

I don't know if I hate or love that you were such a singer, so much, that I was able to collect your covers in the storage of my phone and listen to it whenever I please.

Of course, I love hearing your voice. I love that I was able to rely on those when I was missing you, and I'm glad that somehow I could feel close to you even when our bond was dissolving up in flames. When the night would come around, I'd go straight to your voice to drown out all my sorrows, and when I'd wake up the next morning, I'd be tangled up in my headset, and it'd still be playing.

The whole night, your voice would harmonize in my ears. Without it, I couldn't sleep.

But in these days, I've seen what music really does to people. It can be heavenly, but it can be torture. It can make you miss a person more, despite them being unable to come back. It's a remnant of them that will never leave you.

You can forget everything you've ever heard in your lifetime, and out of the blue, get into a taxi and take off touring a place you never knew before -- where there's nothing familiar -- and a song would play, and suddenly all these memories flash before your eyes. That's what it does, and without warning. It can't be fought either. It comes rapidly and before you know it, tears are falling down your cheeks.

I guess some days are better than others.

We're humans. Maybe at one point, we forget conversations, as much as we don't want to admit it. We forget literal moments or we forget the things others say. We can never remember the exact day something happened, and I doubt that we'd ever know the time on the clock, but when a song starts playing everything comes back. You remember everything about how that person made you feel.

You can miss a person out of nowhere. Right when you think that you get through the day and like you're feeling okay again, right when you think that you're going on a little further without having to bring up the perimeter of their face -- that song plays and everything changes. You're as bad as you were in the beginning.

The same thing happens with smells too.

A day comes up when I realize I need new shoes, and I take off zooming through the aisles of a superstore where there'd be a person nearby whose cologne smells remotely similar to yours. My sister was excited one day to share her mango dessert recipe, smelling strong of ripe fruit, and all I can think about is that time that we had mango smoothies together and we watched the employee make it in front of us.

I don't think I can go to an ocean anymore. As much as I blame the salt for bothering my eyes too much, I think everyone knows that I'm thinking of you, and what we had together.

What I'm saying is some days are okay.

Some days I can hardly catch my breath.

-C.L.

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Mister Warrior,

It's the same thing as your life flashing before your eyes -- when you experience the most beautiful chapter of your life and then the worst of it far too quickly.

I guess everything that you have, has risk of being lost, and regardless of how much you love it with all your heart, that result doesn't change. Not even a little bit.

But like I said, that's never the part we tend to focus on, even if we do know it's true in the very back of heads. We think about how beautiful it is that two strangers can become each other's world, and that they pray for each other's happiness. That's what we're supposed to do anyway, aren't we? We're supposed to live in the present?

For the situation I'm in now, I don't think that's possible. I'm too obsessed with the past and I think as the years go by it's the only period of time that I'll feel connected to. It'll be the only period of time in which I felt lively.

I'll both smile and cry when I think of you, and every minute when I do recall the moments so special, I'll pray a prayer that can't be answered. I'll pray that this is only a bad dream, and that when I wake up tomorrow morning, we can sit and talk by the shore like we used to do.

You would be free to somehow mean more to me in each of those times, even when I can swear in the moment before that I can't care for you more than I already do. You always knew how to do something that would make me ignite on the insides and feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and because of that I couldn't imagine a life without you.

But I'm seeing now, that as I fight this battle, trying to lift up my spirits in all the ways you taught me to, it's nothing that you did that made me fall further for you.

Once I met you I cherished you with my entire heart, yet even though you're gone now, I still care more and more about you every tick of the clock. I guess I just got more time to reflect on the person you are, and when I do that, whether you're with us or away, there's nothing about you I can despise.

Especially now considering that it's you who taught me to be optimistic and to hold my head up high -- I know that you wouldn't want to see me with tears in my eyes -- but it's hitting me that you're part of me now and wherever you are, you always will be. You made me who I am.

Just because you're not feeding me with new quirky pieces of you, it doesn't mean that I'm done thinking of you. I'm not, and I won't ever be. I can't be. I'm not capable of it.

It hurts that you're gone, but I'll never remove you from my heart. You're safe there, even if the fact you've gone missing makes me swollen.

I promise I'll continue fighting exactly the way you taught me. I promise that I'll try my best to be strong like you told me to be. I promise that I'll make it to the new world.

We'll meet again soon.

Won't we?

-C.L.

-

Mister Glue,

Have you ever been asked what love is? How would you answer that question if you were asked it?

Love is something we throw metaphors at, and the reason we make comparisons like that is because just as we've never been able to see a star up close, we haven't seen love up close either. We have to learn what it is in our own way. We have to understand what it is by ourselves, and because of that the "epitome of love" will have a different comprehension for everyone.

I don't think any of us really know.

Some people say that love means that you see your person in the most unglamorous of forms, and the only thing you can think about when you look at him or her is how happy you are that they're yours. Every time you look at that person you can't help but to smile from ear to ear, and you can get in your own head sometimes just thinking about them even when they're away.

Others say that love is hearing the most irritating snore on an otherwise quiet night when you should be able to hear the crickets chirping, and being thankful that despite the annoyance and the inconvenience that he or she may cause you, they're with you and provide no reason to you that they'll ever leave.

I do agree with them to an extent. They capture the meaning of love to a certain degree, but to me personally, it's not the actual definition of what love is. It could be better. People try to make it sound more magical than it is, and I don't know why. It already is magical, and the more we play around with it the more we think that it's complicated, but in reality, we're fooling ourselves. It's not, and shouldn't be.

After all, sometimes you might look at your partner and can see how much they're not your type. Maybe she has dark hair when your type is blondes, and she's a little high maintenance when you dreamed of a simple girl. Maybe her hair is curly when you always imagined your soulmate would have only slightly wavy hair -- but so what, right? That person is still the love of your life. It doesn't matter what they look like, during their glamorous moments or not.

The snore of your partner could piss you off, but that doesn't mean you don't love them anymore. Especially when the next morning he makes you coffee exactly the way you like it, with two creams and a melted chocolate, because he saw you sneak a Hershey's bar out of your bag on your first date -- it's reasons like that that shows why you love them.

We're all imperfect. There's things in us and in them that will make us go crazy, but that's love for you. That's the way it works.

I think that life sucks. We go through the worst of things that none of us deserve to to through, but love makes it suck a little less, even if it only holds on to us temporarily. It can get messy, and some people abuse it, but if it was done right, for a little while at minimum, we are saved from the world's wickedness and we feel like we've been spared.

It's not much more than that, but it's gorgeous.

That's what I thank you for.

I thank you for being the glue that kept me together.

I'll go crazy for a while without you, but with your wisdom that I'll remember, I'll try to be fine eventually.

-C.L.

-

Mister Garden Fairy,

"If a had a dollar for every time someone said 'such and such' I'd be rich" is a super common thing that people like to say these days, but I can't say that I've said it nearly as many times as I've heard it.

What I say on the daily if it has to be along those lines happens to be, "if I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I'd have a garden without end in sight," and I don't think it's an exaggeration. It seems like such a delightful place to be too, if it could only exist.

I can see myself easily finding shelter in such a beauty. Separated from the rest of the world, shielded from it thanks to you and every bit of your miracles, I can remember you as freely as I wish to, without outsiders coming in where they don't belong for the sake of my rude awakening.

Why don't people get that if I can't be with you, I at least want to pretend I can be? Is it unhealthy? Am I actually going crazy? Is it a sin to drown myself in the gentle touches of my memories that have only came from you? Is it terrible to miss my only source of yellow in this blue, blue universe?

Tell me, please, why do people expect me to let go of the only thing that made me happy?

I've come across a lot of people in my life time. Some of them, I knew from the very start that our personalities didn't clash well, and others it took a week, a month, or even a year, but I saw potential for something beautiful to blossom when I was with you. Maybe at the time, I wasn't totally confident in what exactly that was, but I knew that something could. I knew that we were meant to be connected in some kind of way.

I genuinely feel like we were destined to be partners for life, and you can take that in anyway that you want to, but I mean it when I say it. We had something special. Don't you think?

If you think I sound corny or cliché, maybe I am. I don't know, but you know that within me I've always been this way. Even if I don't show it constantly, it's bound within me in chains at all times, and every so often it gets strong enough to break free.

But I don't necessarily think it's weird. I think I sound pretty realistic, especially when I say that you are and will forever be the only person on this planet that can bear my stupidity and turn it into something comedic -- something we could only pull off together.

I think that we had what not just anyone can understand, and I'm proud of that.

Only you can deal with me when nobody else could. Only you saw the real me and came back to me out of your own will and eagerness.

Truly, it's only you who understands.

You're the maker of my flower garden.

-C.L.

-

Mister Wanted,

I know this is messed up to say, but it'd be a crime for me to pretend it wasn't true, and somewhere I want to see if someone can at least understand me, but I can't find that person anywhere.

I don't have the boldness to say this, and I feel so dirty and disgusting for thinking this up.

You've taught me so much in my lifetime. I've became a person that I didn't think I was capable of coming, and that I gave up being a long, long time ago, but still, sometimes I wish that in my eyes you didn't amount to much. I wouldn't be the person I am today, but at least I wouldn't be in this much agony.

Of course, even if I got the opportunity to do such a thing, I wouldn't be able to let myself go through with it. I'm certain of that, but thinking of this in a selfish way, I think about the feelings I would feel at this second if you didn't treat me as kindly as you did.

It's not that I'd wish the outcome that came for you on anyone. Even people that destroyed my self-esteem and my own confidence, like my ex, I wouldn't wish for them to have their life end out of the blue. I know that even if they manipulated me, they're still sons, daughters, cousins, and friends to other people, and in other people's eyes they're a star. I wouldn't have any intention to ruin that for anyone.

But if you treated me badly, maybe it would at least be easier to let you go. I wouldn't be this desperate to hold on for you, and my disappointment wouldn't be as personal as it is now. I wouldn't feel this agony in the way I do.

The thing about that is, that's all the evidence I need to make it clear that what I've experienced in my lifetime with you was a privilege that is not granted to you by just any person you pass by on the street.

You really meant a lot to me, and I should be happy about that. I should be thankful that in a small increment, I had the chance to know someone as sweet and delicate as you. I met a person who actually cared about others, in a world where people forgot to.

So, it dawns on me, I hurt the way I do now not because I didn't care, but because I do and because I always will. Honestly, how could I not? If I had someone who always made me feel like I was wanted and like I belonged, why would I want it any other way?

I know I wouldn't be hurting like this if I never knew who you were, and I'm realizing that pain demands to be felt, but that it's not necessarily wrong to feel it.

It means that you made an impact on my life, when everybody else failed to. It means that you reached the impossible. You slayed a dragon, to say the least.

I've learned the hard way that when I feel unwanted, that's my sign to leave. I've learned to pay attention to the red flags, rather than pretend they're not there. I've learned to leave those people alone.

But knowing that I never had that urge with you is a definition of happiness that the dictionary doesn't know.

I'll love the heartbreak if that means I got to love you.

I'll love the heartbreak, because I'll love you forever.

I'll do whatever it takes.

-C.L.

-

Mister Airplane,

Sometimes I think about what possessed you to want to put up with a person like me, and no matter how long or hard I think about it, I can never come to any conclusion. It's completely over my head that after you received pain because of me, and had multiple chances to keep your distance, you came back.

I know I mentioned this before in this book of goodbyes, but to this day, it still doesn't make any sense. I'm pretty disappointed in myself that I didn't ask about it while I could. It would've been the subject of a funny story, I'd think so, and every so often it's nice to touch back into the depths of nostalgia.

At least for a while we'd be able to laugh the way that we used to before we broke apart, even if we did eventually go back to our distant separate ways. At least for a quick minute, I could taste the sky, as if I were floating the way I used to when I was with you.

My mood changes quickly. So much, that you might experience over a thousand moods in under a minute -- some that even I myself didn't know existed. I'm one of those dudes that a lot of people can't handle, or that simply choose not to, I guess.

I can still remember that time when you came to my house for the first time to court me formally, like they used to do in the older days. Those were your intentions at least, and for a while it was going to plan. You serenaded me with song, accompanied by your guitar, and you showed of the voice of an angel you had, but humbly. I fell for your shyness, and inside, you couldn't imagine how giddy I was.

But on the outside, I don't look that way. I didn't believe such a phrase when I was first told, -- I thought I gave my emotion away -- yet now I don't have a choice but to accept that. You have all the proof as well.

Or you had it.

Because you were the type of man who fought for the approval from my parents, you talked consistently with my mom even when she wasn't around, through text at minimum if you couldn't call. You wanted to win her favor.

Among our time together, apparently you must've snuck a picture of me, and when I saw it later on, I've realized how emotionless I actually appear. I look uninterested, and unfortunately that's just how my face tends to rest itself. I had no idea.

And despite not knowing the truth about me, you did your very best to spend time with me. You wanted to get me out of my shell and you wanted me to explore the world, even though you had no clue you could get something in return for it. We understood each other so well, but apparently, not entirely. Not in that criteria. There, we misunderstood one another.

If only we didn't.

Whatever the case though, I can't change that. Believe me, I would if I could, but there's nothing that can bring us back to that moment again.

So to avoid getting too deep into that rabbit hole, I do find myself thinking, did you have that picture of me saved on your phone until the very end? Is my face still even 1% of its storage?

I understand it's probably not, but it would be really cool if it was.

I just wonder if you cherished any of our memories together like I cherished them with you.

-C.L.