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𝐨𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐮 𝐝𝐚𝐳𝐚𝐢 ✧ 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫

April 19th / Prompt: "you're not as empty as you lead others to believe." / 1.1k words

✧ ｡ﾟ✐.*ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* ✎｡:*ﾟ

Dear Osamu Dazai,

I am writing you this letter because, for me at least, it has always been far more easy to put my feelings onto paper and make them come to life with ink and pen that has been with my words aloud. I may not know entirely why it is that way, but when I speak the words often feel clunky on my tongue, like a broken record - one who's words are twisted and distorted, not repeating. But when I carve my words into code though the plastic keys of a computer, or into the page with ink, it feels so much more secure. I know anyone could see them, and that they exist forever, no matter how I may try to erase them, but that offers a strange comfort to me.

But I am writing to you for a plethora of reasons. Namely because when I look into your eyes - and they say the eyes are the window to the soul - I see myself. I see al my worst traits. I see a person who hides behind a mask so convincing they foul even themselves. It makes me wonder, and it makes me worry. Because in truth, I would rather not be like you.

I would rather know and feel like myself. I would like to drop that mask and act as myself, but those few times I have, I have hurt someone, truly I must be a terrible person, right? You need not answer that, I know the answer. I may be "kind", I may be "brave", I may be "honest" I may be so many things, but I have no knowledge if any of it is real. I have no understanding if even those emotions of anxiety and regret are true.

So let me ask you this, am I allowed to love myself? Am I allowed to be proud of my accomplishments? Because whenever I have been, I've laughed at and scorned, called arrogant and my anxiety only builds, because all I want is to be seen as human. To be seen by others to have the understanding that I am real, that my words mean something, that what I write, that what I say means something, means anything to others. Yet, if I must act like this constantly, always masking and never my true self, then do my words have the same meaning?

Or am I just a doll? Am I just a shell? Because there are days when the noise - that horrid white noise that fills my head - gets so loud I can't think. Because there are days when I know everything I need to say, but none of it comes onto the paper, where I simply stare at a page or a screen alike, only to be met with a blinking cursor and an empty sheet of paper. There are days when I wish I would simply vanish because all my actions do seem to burden others. There are days when I wonder why I was even allowed to live if all I do will hurt those around me, trouble them and cause them grief. There are days when I know that there are people who wouldn't be affected for the worse if I simply vanished. It's on those days where I feel as though truly, I am no longer human.

But even if I am simply that, an empty shell attempting to be human, is that really so shameful?

Is it so shameful for me to wish to take pen to paper, simply to gain an understanding of those around me? Perhaps that is why I enjoy acting and theatre so much, to take to the stage as a stranger, to dress myself in their words and actions, for my mind to meld with theirs - even if only temporarily - and to gain their view of the world for those few seconds on stage. Is it so shameful for me to wish to be human even if there are days when I am not? Because, if I can find even the smallest excuse for one such as I to remain alive and breathing, then I refuse to see that as weak, as shameful.

So when I look into your eyes, though you are mere lines of ink on paper, born from the legacy of a man long dead, and I see myself, I am grateful. I'm grateful to have found your story when I did, for if I hadn't I would have been so much worse off. I am grateful to have found myself, for the first time, in a fictional character.

For even if you and your world are simply that, fiction, I am grateful to have found that world. To have allowed myself to have been lost in it's pages, to find myself in a landscape of ink and imagination; to watch the tales and dialogue of legacies drive me further to tell my own stories; to practice my craft and to realize that I too can undergo my own character development. That I can change, for the better now just for the worst. That my third act breakdown, need not be my climax by rather simply another chapter of my life, and that when I am ready I can turn to the page.

So let me tell you this, you are not as empty as you lead others to believe. Nor am I. Because no matter how inhumane a person can feel, that doesn't contract from the fact that they are in fact human. That I am human, and that so are you. So then, I thank you, for being the character I needed to see, and for allowing me to realize that it is fine if you don't always love yourself because growth doesn't happen overnight. And I am still growing, and so when you finish your arc, and perhaps then you will be able to see that you are human, I will be here waiting because not every story needs to be a tragedy.

Sincerely Yours,

A nameless narrator who is still learning how to be human.