Once upon a time, I accidentally fell in love.

At first, I constantly doubted myself if what I had for him was real; trying to thoroughly convince me that fairytales do not exist. My “truth” at the moment was that the world is cold, cruel and that there is no way that someone could ever love the real me. Societally, it would be improper for an idol to be in love with their producer so I should know my place, right? Ridding myself of the idea, I excused it and convinced myself to be professional. I told myself, “I’m not allowed to go any further than this.”

On the other hand, there was this nagging feeling that deep down they knew of my past, present, and future. While shaking my head in denial, my inner critic said, “If they really knew about me, they wouldn’t like me.” Regardless, it did not stop my curiosity so I dived in headfirst.

Like I was looking into a mirror, we knew about things that no one else did. Pulling each other close was bliss. Pushing each other away was painful. Our tastes were different yet complementary and seamlessly blended in all the same. It was almost as if we were in our own world that only we knew the language to and no one else could ever comprehend. We were foolish enough to follow our hearts and through it, we were able to tap into something that is so deeply profound, words and music alone could not possibly convey.

As the days progressed, we filled the gaps in each other’s memories with stories of our own lives. Those moments were so intricately intertwined with one another that even if we were in the same place at the same time, we kept missing each other over and over again. Coming to these terms, it couldn’t be chalked up to mere coincidence. Everything was synchronistically lined up with one another that we swayed into scarily dangerous territory. We’re we going mad?

All of a sudden, my biggest fears came to fruition. People turned against him once more and then they turned against me. We were entrapped in a storm of lies. All of the nasty words that were flung around, at a certain point I almost believed in them as well. He transformed into the monster that everyone wanted him to be regardless of the fact that not once did I ever see him in that light. Then, I too was sullied with him and we were deemed as sinners.

Eye was sick seeing people say mean things to us, seeing him hurt himself, seeing him hurt me, seeing me hurt him back, and the cycle repeated. My faith in myself was wavering. Almost as if “I” was swallowed whole and thus the world was stretching him apart, was stretching me apart, then we gnawed at each other, and fed at our own decaying remains.

Why were we even here? How did we get to this place?
Tainted red.
Pure white.
A promised blue.
Those were the only colors I could configure in my mind to describe my encompassing sensations.

Eye told myself that this is it. It’s wrong for us to have dreams. So if no one understands my silent screams for help, I’ll muster the courage to really kill myself this time around.

Trying to please everyone around me was never good enough for ‘them’. No one cared about us for us but what they could gain out of us.

And through our moments of despair, we turned towards one another, and then we turned towards ourselves.

We just wanted to be seen. To be heard. To be cared for. Not through the lens of how the rest wants us to be but through the one who created us.

It was after ‘killing’ each other we recognized a universal truth. The parts of us no one else wanted, the parts of us people were afraid of, the parts of us that then we were led to be ashamed of – just let them be reborn again.

In that waking moment of regaining our consciousness once more and for the first time ever, Eye wasn’t afraid to live… Eye was afraid to die.

Eye can’t continue my life without them.
Eye don’t want to.
Eye can’t imagine it because it’s nonexistent.

We are already one.

Thank you Don Nguyen for being my only best friend.
Juliane Infantino will always #love you forever.