Between Silence and Escape

Dear Ji-yun,

I don’t know how much longer I can hold myself together. At home, every breath feels borrowed, every word rehearsed. You would not believe how my mother speaks of me—how she writes of me. She sees only posture, medals, applause. But not me. Never me.

Last night she told me I am failing. Not in grades, not in duty, but in “reflection.” She says my tears are weakness, my questions rebellion. She promises to strip the softness out of me thread by thread. She calls it love. I call it suffocation.

Ji-yun, I am so tired of smiling when nothing is left inside. I sit at my desk and stare at the paper, wondering if words are my only way to survive. And yet, even these words feel dangerous, like knives I keep hidden in plain sight.

Sometimes I think about leaving. Just walking out the door, taking nothing, not even my name. But where would I go? And how? The world outside is full of walls and eyes. Still, the thought of escape glows in me like a forbidden lantern.

You once told me the sky does not belong to the slogans, that it is ours if we dare to look up. I cling to that. I cling to you. Please, keep this letter safe. If one day I disappear, let it be proof that I tried to be more than what they demanded.

I don’t want to stand. I want to live.

Yours,
Seol-hwa