Paper Hearts

Prologue

I am not okay.

From the beginning people said I was cursed. They said that I did not deserve to love myself. A looser like me doesn't deserve to eat. To breathe. To live.

They said I was worthless.

If only they knew the true extent of it.

Back then...Back then I thought I could change things. I thought things would be different. Busan college of Art was a nightmare, but Seoul College of dance was supposed to be different. I thought it would be better. I would be better. I could be someone else. I wanted to be someone else.

Who I am...is not enough.

I am not okay. I write this knowing that I am not okay. The funny thing is- I thought I could pretend. It became a habit. I would smile and say 'yes, I'm fine. Thank you.' And that would be enough. I honestly thought that I could fake it all. I never imagined the one thing that was never fake, would feel like the only thing unreal.

As reality would have it, deception was not what brought me to the end. Deception was easy. Deception didn't kill me. I thought if I was going to die, I would die because of the hidden pain. I would die because I was someone else. I forced myself to be someone else, to be perfect and when things didn't go to plan...I pushed harder. I couldn't be myself. I shouldn't be myself.

That's why I became him...The profile of the perfect man, perfection created by a million unfamiliar faces, who hear my voice but only ever know my name. Isn't it strange how the image of a person can hold so much value?

A million strangers can comment on your life as if they know everything about you. You can be ridiculed, put on the stand as if you're a murder going on trial, the jury's out but you have no way to defend yourself. I don't think any one of those strangers could truly understand what the cost of popularity really means. Everything about you, negative and positive is magnified. After a while you start to focus on the negativity, the negative thoughts get stuck in your head. It's like a darkness that keeps pulling you away from the light and suddenly you can't seem to find a way out.

I hid myself, I chose to push harder to be the person I was supposed to be. Instead of the person I had been hiding. I wanted to be someone else, not just for the sake of myself but for the sake of everyone else. I didn't deserve to be myself. I didn't deserve to love who I wanted to love. To live how I wanted to live. Who I am....will never be enough.

I write this knowing that it will probably be a letter frozen in time. A letter that none will ever read. I guess I'm not writing this for anyone else. I'm writing it as a goodbye, for myself. I figure if I am going to die, I should at least die knowing that in the end I wasn't pretending. And the one thing, the one thing that remained consistently real, throughout everything, the one thing that was never fake...stays real. I didn't love you as someone else. Your love was never pretend.

I let go...knowing that.

I didn't deserve to love you. I don't deserve to love you. But I do. And it doesn't matter how hard I try to become someone else, to be the person everyone wants me to be. I am who I am. I am who I am...no matter what.

Pretending to be someone else was easy. Deception was easy. Pretending to be someone else whilst loving you was hard and in the end being someone else didn't kill me.

Being myself