Once in a blue moon, I wrote a letter to you.

Lying on the verdant green bed sheet we stared at the ceiling embellished with glow-in-the-dark stars. With your voice steadily reciting the tale of Cinderella, it was as if we were rolling around in a vast meadow, basking under the quiet starry night. The world felt big, but there would always be you. Nothing escaped your grasp, you didn't need a clue.

You once beamed when I transformed our narrow hallway into a runway, your purses swinging in my hands. But now you insist I walk with purpose, arms still, steps sure. You bought me my first moisturizer when my skin began to falter, yet now you scorn the routine it has become. You once taught me to speak my heart when childhood shadows weighed me down, but now you say a man's heart should stay silent.

Naturally, Being an only child, I never wanted to disappoint you. For the sake of familial peace, I presented a facade which consequently sacrificed true emotional connection with you. So despite being under the same roof, I felt light years away from you. I erected more and more barriers between us not because you've grown insignificant to my life, but because your sheer importance obligates me to put up with the act. I knew I could no longer share my personal experiences with you as there was no point in making you understand. The stereotype you had of men like me repulses you by just the mere thought of them. How could I shatter the innocent and pure image you had of me?

And so I enter into evidence of all the times I've made myself a stranger to you, and how I've ultimately become a stranger to myself.

I think you know Ethan, the boy that I went to tuition classes with, the boy that you cooked dinner for when he came for study sessions, the boy that tainted me black and blue. I still remember the night when the room was tinted with a tinge of warm yellow. Our textbooks sat perfunctorily on the table, while our eyes were on each other, my head on his shoulder. It was the only spot that granted us freedom, freedom from the nasty glances and crude slurs – the getaway car zooming down highways from the money heist we would casually conduct. Sadly, the comfort and warmth was short-lived. The soft amber hues flashed into a harsh caustic fluorescence when you swung open the door, turning that safe space into an interrogation room. I hated how careless I was for the curtains to seal prematurely to the play I had worked long and hard to put up.

That was the first time I saw you cry. With each wail you let out, something inside me frayed, as if the very fibers of my heart were being slowly torn apart. That moment cemented my belief that I was nothing but a disappointment to you.

The next day you brought me to a temple. Believing that I was possessed by some evil spirit, you berated me in front of the gods, begging for my body to be cleansed from sins. Incense blurred my vision, but it was clear to me that no evil spirits were puppeteering my actions. I started praying anyway. I prayed for forgiveness. I prayed to be the son you've always wanted.

Silence filled the house for the next few days but the false sense of peace was abruptly shattered when you sat me down, puffy-eyed and fatigued, telling me I should change, that people like me could never find a place in the world. Pressing my lips together, I fought the words trying to escape. 

Since home was no longer the sanctuary it used to be, I retreated behind the layers of brick walls to shield myself from your eyes of disdain. Our exchanges grew shallow, whittled down to reports of academic triumphs. They became compensations for the wife I'd never bring home, and the children I'd never father. But as burnout crept up on me, a hollow numbness settled in, and I realized that all of it—the grades, the trophies—was just a desperate act of appeasement. I have willingly but unknowingly bartered my sense of self for your approval. The figure in the mirror grew foreign and all I saw was an empty vessel living by your rigid standards and ideals. 

April 24th, you came back with mail addressed to me. It was already torn open when you left it on the dining table. I got offered a full-ride scholarship to pursue my undergraduate degree overseas. You were just as excited as I was but for different reasons of course. It was as if I had gotten a second chance in life. So I started planning. I planned every academic step, every internship, every company to apply to after graduating, and every potential rental apartment. I planned to break free of the shackles holding me back. 

Looking back at the plans,  I see how naïve I was. I thought freedom meant certainty, but instead, I stumbled headfirst into an identity crisis—that was how freshman year unfolded when I was no longer kept under surveillance. There were no more baton clankings on my prison cell bars; I was then even told to lock my door. While my GPA initially justified the delayed responses to your texts, the late nights dedicated to assignments became inseparable from alcohol or promiscuity. Slowly, I began drifting from the one thing I, or rather you, had built my identity around—my academic success. Yet I wasn't proud of the person I was becoming either. I drowned myself in fleeting pleasures, chasing highs that left me feeling emptier each time. I was disgusted for turning into the stereotype you had of men like me.

In the meantime, the distance between us remained a vast, uncrossable ocean. Conversations felt stilted and awkward as if we were strangers playing pretend as family. But when I saw your name light up my phone screen one night—well past midnight—something shifted in me.

 

I hesitated before answering. When I did, your voice cracked through the receiver, soft and unsure. "Are you okay?" you asked. No lecture. No accusations. Just concern. The walls I'd built began to crumble.

 

I remained silent. Yet, you didn't push me, not like you used to. "I know things have been... hard," you said, your voice gentler than I remembered. "I just wanted to say, I'm proud of you. For figuring things out, even if it's messy." 

 

And just like that, something inside me gave way. It wasn't a grand apology or a perfect resolution, but it was enough. We sat in silence for a long time, the weight of unspoken things hanging in the air. Yet, for the first time in years, the silence didn't feel like a wall between us, it felt like a bridge. In that quiet moment, we found a way back to each other, not as parent and child or warden and prisoner, but as two people learning how to exist together in a new way.

 

Nonetheless, it would be a lie if I said I've never resented you. You grew up in a time and place where headlines of such communities were not of success stories, rather, we were equated to being social parasites, the reason for disease and social upheavals. And while I would always say how times have changed, I know how challenging it is to uproot beliefs that have been deeply woven into one's understanding of the world. When society tells the same narrative repeatedly, it settles into the subconscious, like ink seeping into fabric. Even as new voices emerge, those old fears and judgments linger, refusing to fully release their grip. 

Brick by brick, I hope we reunite, allowing our lives to intertwine. Sitting on the verdant green bed sheet as my pen glides across paper, I wish the stars could glow again, with us sharing our stories instead.

Once in a blue moon, I came back to you.