The Lonely Chorus

[999roses]

A collection of short pieces

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In a land far far away, I stand on the edge of a mountain and look at the vast valleys below. Everything is so beautiful, so peaceful, so full of life. Yet I stand alone, gazing and gazing upon fields and fields of lavender. I want to grab its hand and pull it close to me, breathing in the smell, but like everything else, it doesn’t wait for me, nothing does.

Minutes later, the storm has arrived and I sway with the wind, following its rhythm. I reach down again, but the lavender has really gone, shrunk its head down into the earth. I’m alone, all over again, almost like the lavender was never out to play. Does it still exist? Of course, but knowing that doesn’t ease my pain, my yearning.

I want to hold it, grab it, brush my face into the wispy bumps, breathing in the texture, feeling the purple. But I can’t, it’s gone, shredded, away.


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The definition of loneliness—the moment when one has finally deciphered the puzzle one’s self—ironically coincides with the deafening realization that all others will ultimately fail to do so. And that is the essence of loneliness. For the vast majority, we are well aware of this fact, yet we live in denial. In a pathetic attempt to refute this truth, we seek friendships, relationships, marriages—but human contact will not satisfy our needs. Is the alternative better? The ones who accept the truth have no choice but to live in isolation with this message forever wounded in their souls. And the ones who are truly able to contradict it? Their stories are the clouds of our dreams, the seeds of hope that we secretly plant in our hearts, the will that keeps us going each day in the busy and blinding streets of todays and tomorrows.


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We backup everything: our files, proofs from our pictures, photocopies of our receipts. But who backs up our memories? Who takes a million pictures of our expressions, priceless images that can not be duplicated? Who records our thoughts, silent words that are spoken but not heard? Who records the weight of our burdens, the degrees of our pain, the volume of our tears? How many decibels are our screams for help? When we dissolve into ashes, we too, burn in the flames and return to the sea, the earth, the sky—everything uniquely us lost forever.

[999roses]

Looking back upon the years, I wish I could say I want to return, I want to relive the memories, the hopes, the dreams. But I just shift my head in the other direction, steering myself away from lost years, lost memories, lost times. I open my yearbook, only to stare blankly, questioning my previous existence, was I really there? I pinch myself, and I feel physical pain. I am here, now is the reality. Yet numbness quickly takes over, so I look forward again. Am I in the future? Or perhaps it is my empty past that pushes me forward, to create an empty future that will soon dissolve into the cycle again, to the empty past of many tomorrows ahead.


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We work so hard to find meaning in our lives, to find that piece of string that will somehow tie something—anything together so it doesn’t seem like we’re walking into oblivion, aimless and blind. Yet at the end of the day, the harder we try to create meaning, the more it hurts when you are unable to do so. Because any negative outcome as a result of many attempts will hurt more than something we didn’t put our hearts into. And then we’re left with pain, with isolation, with emptiness. But it is the pain that attracts us, that we end up craving…Even though it hurts, even though the pang in our hearts is almost enough to suffocate us, we desperately try to grasp onto it, trying to feel any emotion at all that will jolt our dead hearts the least bit. Because at the end of the day, all we want to be is alive, and to form a connection with the world. If pain is the only medium in which we can do so, if it is the only shared emotion among humanity, then so be it. Bring forth the pain, smother our chest with aches, and let pain run through our blood, traveling through our soul.

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Why do we write stories? Why do we create plots of hypothetical situations that will never occur to us? We want to escape, to take a vacation to a foreign land, one that is so distant, further from any limits we have ever encountered. We want to cry, we want to laugh, but most of all, we want to feel emotions. Our lives are neither washed-up or glamorous; we are neither justified in feeling exuberant or hopeless as each day passes. But we are allowed and do end up experiencing sole indifference—indifference for the people we encounter, indifference for the events we encounter. When we write, actions and words suddenly touch our hearts; we’re suddenly faced with emotional dilemmas that call on us to question our faith in love. Suddenly, we can start to utter the word ‘love’, we have an use for an vestige term that seems to be patented by the many ‘others’ in our lives. But there is only one way to stay in that world forever….


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There are tunes that give us hope, making us feel lighthearted as we cycle through the many days of repetition. There are melodies that sing to our dreams, floating into our ears and curving our mouths into smiles. But in the heart of the smile, is uncertainty, anxiety, and most of all fear—fear that this moment won’t last, fear that we’re wasting valuable time enjoying life when all we have ever known is stress, frustration, and gloom. We fear that what we’re experiencing now is nothing but an illusion, and we are reluctant to let our hearts go, to follow those faint lines that lead to the rainbow at the end of the dark tunnel. As we listen to this catchy tune in the middle of memorizing molecular mechanisms, we do feel our spirits lift up, if only slightly. But we fear—fear the end of the song. As the familiar chorus repeats again for the third time, we know we are nearing the end, and then it is gone….just like the snappy little moments in our lives. There is a blank between the many songs of our playlists, just long enough to carry us back into reality again. Is this reality truly our destiny? Or is it only something we desperately grasp onto, not willing to let go?

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We are often surprised by how difficult it is to truly capture a moment and recapitulate it. Not as easy as one may think. Embedded within each moment is a special emotion, one which is unique for a given situation. We often try to use tools such as specific songs to bring back the same emotions, but the position you are sitting in, the clothes you are wearing, and the state of your headache will not be the same each time. Even if the song does play a role in triggering the initial emotions that have left their footsteps the last time, you can’t seem to fully emerge into the same steps again. But all these times we listen to the same song are variations upon a theme—one that is dictated by what the song means to us. As we evolve through time, as our experiences change, we begin to dwell deeper and deeper into the polymorphisms of each note, of each syllable.

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It’s powerful what a single song can do to you—how it can feed your soul, your yearnings, fill the deep void within. When we can not gain nourishment from our daily interactions, we look towards the intangible, the notes echoing our unspoken desires. We don’t want the song to end, we don’t want to return to reality. Because in this moment, you are at peace—even with tears streaming down your face, you have made peace with yourself. You can fly away, you can sleep eternally, you can do anything your heart wishes. Because you are free, because you no longer are chained by societal norms and many commitments. No, you can float to the beat of the song—flow with the melody. You can become the character in the MV, the singer bellowing out those high notes, the bystander watching in the crowds—anyone you wish. You are no longer confined to this world you can Earth for you are free—to go anywhere you want.

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Death is a bridge to understanding your past life. But I do not want to wait until death, because I want to remember now…I want to enjoy the moments now instead of as an afterthought. I want to remain who I am—I want to keep my past and I have to see my future. I don’t want to be another pawn in the game of chess—I want to move myself from checkerboard to checkerboard. If I fall, it is my doing and not the works of the mighty one. The bridge is so serene, so amazingly beautiful, yet I do not wish to cross it. I am not ready to enter the next world, I just want to stay where I am. I want to see the world, I want to jump up and down, and most of all, I just want to breathe a gasp of fresh air.

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That's about enough for today.

[999roses]

I gaze outside the window and suddenly feel as if the glass has morphed into steel—bars of steel that jail me away from the outside world—the world where my imagination can run wild. I am jailed in this study space, wasting my creative energy, draining my mental energy as I memorize useless formulas, regurgitate redundant facts. I wish to dream—I wish to design—I wish to create a story that no one has ever heard of before. But it is not within my reach for I am trapped—trapped within my own room, within my own goals, and worse of all—within my own pride. I try to remain practical—I ignore all outside sources, but trinkets of my true desires leak through in all forms. Each time the haunting melody plays, my heart is lured—lured by the lonely tune, lured by the lyrical voice. I want to join it—I want to create a character who can make the song theirs, a plot that steals the music as its theme, and an audience who will remember my piece forever as the one that claims this song. But it is not mine and neither are my ideas—ideas that have wasted away as the day draws near, as my eyes grow weary, as my mind slowly shuts down. I want to write—I really do, but as long as the window is facing me, I can not afford to. And hence I sit here in silence dismally, imagining the what-ifs, the infinite possibilities that I will never face in this lifetime.

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I want to thank you for giving me an opportunity to feel shock, to feel discomfort, to feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment, an unbearable moment of agony. Because without your haunting tunes, without your eloquent words, without your breathtaking images, I would never have the chance to borrow a piece of you to live in a hidden ecstasy—an ecstasy of pain, of happiness, of numbness. I am only a dot in this large world, but with your help, I can live like a queen, like a peasant, and even fly like a bird. Because anything is possible when you have opened the doors in my mind, when you have released the locks in my heart. I want to thank you again—for giving me the opportunity to unfreeze my heart, to liquefy the ice block behind my eyes—letting the tears flow freely. And most of all, I want to thank you for giving me a chance to live, truly live as a human being with flesh, meat…and emotions.

[999roses]

Sometimes I think the saddest thing in the world is not facing hardship nor the inability to achieve one’s dreams. It is the realization of how we must fake ourselves in this world to survive—for our pride and for our fear—fear of the unknown and fear of the known. Once thrust into the spotlight, we can’t help but play our given roles—say those scripted words with contrived humor, with feigned compassion, with self-inflicted sorrow. Yet the greatest irony is in that we do this to avoid numbness, yet the greatest numbing factor is the masking and suppression of our true selves. Once I slip on this persona, once I sell my soul away to a world that no longer has enough room to explore my true self, then I have betrayed myself—betrayed who I am, betrayed what I truly want to be. But before all this, I soon come to realize that I am lost—ever so lost in a world where I can no longer pinpoint my ‘true self’, a mirage that does not exist. Perhaps I am meant to be a floater, a wanderer, a ghost who lurks in the shadows. I will stand in line, hoping to be assigned a true self, yet never possessing the courage to find it myself.

There’s many things that I want in life, things that I want right now and right here. Sometimes they’re a new OST and other times, it’s my favourite dish. I will stop everything and the world around me ceases to exist until I get it. Isn’t this natural human nature? To want something and work through everything to get it? But once I have it in my hands, after I’ve relished my craving, its value suddenly drops, to the point where I know I can just discard it and I wouldn’t even care. I hate this about human nature—I hate this about myself, and I hate everything associated with not valuing what I have and not working hard for my long-term goals. But it’s these little pleasures that bring excitement into my life, that form the peaks of my emotional progression, that give me a reason to look forward to living the next minute in anticipation. Because I’m so close to it—to what I want, and I know I can get it. Other dreams, I sweep under the rug because I know I won’t be able to reach them—because they’re so far away from my grasp, I don’t crave. Instead, I glance afar with admiration, with jealousy even, but never with a craving. Because those things are not mine and they will never be. So I sit here on level with my cravings, and continue to divulge in small pleasures. Tomorrow, they will be enough to satisfy me again, but right now, I am growing tired of them…I want more—I want the world—a world I can never have.

[999roses]

Why are we so concerned with keeping records? Is it because we don’t want to be forgotten? Some records are conscious, because I like to keep track of how much money I’ve made, how many courses I’ve taken, how many jobs I can put on my resume. Yet other records….are hidden ones that I make subconsciously to leave a mark in this world. For no one really knows how long they will walk….perhaps we have nothing to worry about, and all the time in our retirement ages to look back and smile or laugh at our youth. But at the same time, our fate could end in a split second, leaving us with nothing but memories we have conjured in other people’s minds. So we leave our own records, somehow believing that our loved ones will find them. Or not even those who care about us, but perhaps a stranger will somehow connect with us. Because no one likes to leave this world alone and most of all, forgotten. For all the days we have spent in isolation and loneliness during our lives, we do not wish to take those similar emotions to another world we have to travel in. We want to leave something—anything behind. So we keep writing with an invisible pen and ink, hoping that somehow, there are like-minded people who will understand—understand why we keep track of the movies we’ve watched, the books we’ve read, the number of times we’ve cried, the amount of debt we owe to ourselves each time we cheat others or our own morals. Good or bad, soulful or utterly pointless, we need these to survive for they keep us going to each next day. They are our hidden treasures—our hidden assets that will shimmer on the day of our demise. Right now, it is not our time yet, but we hope…we can only hope that when the day comes, we will be ready with this bound book of anthology that only we—only our inner minds can spill at the right moment.

Do we sometimes choose to feel sad? Is there something about this unhappy emotion that pulls us towards it like a strong magnetic force? I don’t want to be sad, yet there is some sort of inner satisfaction and peace—almost as if I have achieved inner balance when I am in a melancholic mood—like a lost bird who has finally found their old nest. True, it’s not as nice as the new birdhouse, but it is familiar and within the cold rims, there is some warmth if I dig deep enough. Why do I put myself through this uphill climb though? That’s something that puzzles me. Why not just cheer up and try to convince myself there is an easier path I could take? Why do I have to create so many obstacles for myself and leave such high and unexplained standards of happiness? Maybe it’s just some inner desire to create a journey for myself. As everyone knows, the bittersweet fruit is in the journey, and not the destination. But at the same time, maybe it’s cliché phrases like these that prompt me to create unnecessary drama in my simple and boring life that complicate it further, creating greater stress and frustration. I do not what to do so I don’t do anything at all. When we’re lost in a strange land, maybe the easiest and most sensible thing to do sometimes is just to sit still and wait. Perhaps if it was meant to be, someone would come rescue you. Or you are just simply destined to wait…forever—until that magic moment arrives when you know your meditation is over.

There are times in your life when you feel all the walls closing in, from every corner and edge imaginable. The breathing space is shrinking by the second and your throat starts to feel raspy and dry—until there doesn’t seem to be enough air for you. You want to run away into a field of lavenders, to swim in a clear and limitless sea away from all this suffocation. But you can’t. You can’t run away from life and you can’t run away from your problems. So you stay in this room, watching with anxiety, with fear, with trepidation as the unknown creeps closer and closer. Suddenly, something snaps inside of you. You don’t even know what it is, but this imaginary light bulb suddenly flashes off. And you realize at this very trivial moment that you do not care anymore. You are overwhelmed by calmness, one so silent and serene that you are even bewildered by it. But it is there—ever there. And at this moment, it seems like anything and everything you do will not matter anymore. Because what is bound to happen will occur and you are only left to watch helplessly—or relaxingly—your call.

There are moments when I blink and wonder if I am living in a dream state or actually waken. There seems to be a mist of fog covering my eyes and I can’t see what is in front of me. Why is it that the dream world I had just woken from seems more surreal than staring numbly in front of the screen trying to convince myself that this moment I am living is actually vibrant? I lick my lips as I crave for a shot of alcohol—tequila, rum, vodka—anything that’ll snap me back into reality. Ironic how I need to be nearly drunk to really feel alive. No wonder I have developed such a love for extremes—for my sour, hot, and alcoholic tastebuds that are just dying for anything strong to stimulate them—just like how my limp heart is just waiting for something to electrocute it. Sometimes I pray for calmness in my busy life, but secretly I embrace danger. Because only danger can help me feel alive. Because there is nothing worse in life than waking up from a moment’s lapse and wondering whether you dreamed everything and whether you are truly sitting in this great big chair right now, away from your home and drifting in an unknown place. There is nothing more haunting than the feeling that many are offering to throw their life supports at you with their reaching arms, yet their images are dimming by the moment, to a point where you can barely see them. And at that very moment, you have never felt more alone in your life. It is only you on an island—a lone survivor in this cruel game of alternating reality and dream. Have I walked so far only for my hard work to be written off as a dream? What scares me the most is the possibility of never knowing—not until the day I die. Then what would I have lived for?

At the end of the day, I am tired. I sit in front of the dresser, staring at my complexion, filled with white caked on face powder, shielding my ceases of worry and anxiety during the day. I stare at my dark eyeliner, giving my eyes a fierce edge that the electric signals in my heart don’t possess to transmit signals naturally. As I remove my dangly earrings that give me the extra bounce as I strut down the halls, I notice a teardrop flowing down, smudging my carefully applied mascara that is now smudged all the way down to my crimson lipstick that fills me with the femininity that I don’t believe I will ever grow to possess. I hear a dry chuckle escape from my throat as I stare at the blended mess in front of me. Somehow, I can feel the curves of my originally firm lips turn upwards as a sudden wave of calmness surrounds my entire being—finally I am set free. In the midst of the running colors and textures, I have finally thrown away that heavy load—I have finally escaped the confines of the jail I have created for myself. Throwing off my own shackles, I can finally envision myself running further and further away—my feet feeling lighter and lighter as I tread into a layer that almost resembles thin air. I am running away—running away from this madness, from you, from them, from anything and everything to be free….

[999roses]

The old melody rings in the back of my mind again and again—as I desperately squeeze the last juices from its pulp, trying and trying to stir up those old emotions from so long ago. But they’re no longer with me—I just sit there blankly as the end of the song taunts ahead. Suddenly, it all comes back—I can lose my memories, I can lose my knowledge, but it’s funny how fast emotions can whirl back—almost as if they had never left your blood. Those cold, lonely nights—staring into an empty void that never could be filled—those haunting fears and insecurities—anything and everything you wanted to forget and shove under the rug. And you did—for a while. But in the end, can you really pretend that they aren’t a part of you? In fact, you need them as much as they need to prey on your lack of confidence—who is truly the parasite? Then you remember the little things that allow you to live again—let you escape into a field of lavenders when you can gaze into a starry sky with your eyes closed, humming to the tune of each and every melody you cherish. And suddenly, you find something to grab onto again—your situation has not improved, in fact being alive makes you yearn for even more. But you realize that a part of your numb and isolated being is still alive and somewhere, one of those days—perhaps someone can truly awaken your senses like these youtube videos. Until then, you wait…..good things only happen to those who wait. Or does it? You will never know, but you can only wait…wait until the winter snow melts, wait until the alarm clock rings in the morning, wait until this second ticks by. And when you blow out the last candle on your birthday cake, when you watch as the mob around you celebrates the arrival of yet another year, when you almost feel a whist of cool air brush past you as time brushes past your shoulder—you close your eyes and count down—one step closer….