Inside a crumpled up piece of paper

This letter, maybe, is a complete nonsense to you. It might even result in you hating me. But it’s okay… really. I don’t know why I wrote this thing. And I don’t know why I send it to you. I don’t even know what I’m doing, but I would type this letter although probably it might end up being folded into a paper plane and thrown from my dorm’s rooftop down to the UI woods behind it—or paper boat and sailed away to one of UI’s eight lakes. You don’t have to respond this letter (honestly I think I’ll be less anxious if you do nothing about it), and if this letter disgusts you… just say the word. Just say the word and I won’t bother you again.

I promise.
No offense is taken.

Well. I always wanted to believe that I’m a happy person. And for most of the time, I think I am. However… sometimes I feel so lost. And alone. Family and friends are just like air. I cannot live without them; they keep me alive and breathing. Nonetheless, my hands cannot reach them. I cannot grasp them with my hands. I cannot feel them with these fingers. Although I had frantically held out both arms to them, in the end, no one is able to take it. They are there, around me, but I don’t feel saved. Parents cannot always stay beside me, can they? And friends definitely won’t be able to be with me in every hard times. I texted them but no one replied. I tried to call them but it didn’t get picked up. My letter box is empty, so are my calls record, inbox messages and mention tab. Am I too greedy? Am I being too selfish? Do I wish for too many things?

And here I hope we aren’t friends.

I don’t want to consider you a friend of mine, because I wish there’s still someone I can reach. I hope I can reach you. I silently wish for our skin to meet each other. It’s perfectly fine even though it’s just a light brush of fingertips. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why this letter is being sent to you: because somehow we are still strangers to each other—or at least half-strangers, since we had communicated quite a lot but you only know the current me. You only know pieces of my past I've told you about while secretly feeling so afraid that you'd leave me. Every time I look at my reflection, I can’t help but wonder:

“Mirror mirror hanging on the wall, am I so ugly?”

I always wanted to know its answer.

Never once it gives me reply.

“Is this ugliness the reason why people leave?”

One second I thought I am surrounded by so many friends, yet in a flash—poof!—I’m all by myself again.

“Is it because they cannot stand the way I look?”

Because no matter how kindhearted a person is, I guess they will never mistake an eyesore as Miss Universe, will they? I know I’m not pretty—forget ‘beautiful’, it sounds millions light year away—, not cute, and definitely not skinny and considerably short. I own legs with the size of coconut tree as well as the weirdest shape of toes. I’m full with imperfections, but what can I do? God gave me all of these, tell me how on earth I can blame God for not being easy on the eyes?

I don’t know if you already knew this, but I also fear the night. I hate the moment darkness falls; eating up the brightness in the sky, surrounding the earth like a blanket. I despise the moment when I arrive home—or recently home means my dorm room—and switch the lamp on. The lights replace the dark, but then I never feel more lonely. There are nights when I sit in the corner hugging my knees. Sometimes the tears begin to fall without my consent, and my shoulders are shaking as if I’m a scared child. There are days when I wake up with an empty feeling—so heartbroken and helpless and pathetic—from a dream I cannot even remember. I don’t mind being alone, but I hate loneliness. you don’t have to understand this by the way, because it’s alright for me. I feel grateful enough having these confusing feelings scribbled down to a piece of paper.

If you begin hating me after reading this letter, I won’t stop you. Because no matter how bad I want to shout, “Please don’t hate me. I like you, please don't walk away”… your heart, your feelings, I have no rights over them.