Dear Evan Hansen,

Fuck you.

Sincerely,

Connor Murphy

But honestly.

What gave you the right to do any of what you did?

To pretend we were friends, and give my parents this whole bullshit story of me and who I was. To start this whole bullshit movement, based on—what, exactly?

No one deserves to be forgotten…

Well, guess what? Evan.

Because of you, I'm even more forgotten than I would've been. Because of you, hundreds of people—millions of people—have this picture of me in their heads that's entirely wrong. They hear Connor Murphy, and they think of some noble kid, who fought depression and lost. They think of someone with friends. They think of someone worth loving.

They don't think of me.

Nobody knows who I was anymore. Everybody who cares about me, and contributes money to a memorial, or hoists me as an example of a brave pioneer who lost his battle, or whatever other bullshit you want to call their 'inspiration,' they don't care about me. They don't know me.

They think of me, and they think of some bullshit made-up version. They think of you...right?

That's all I am, anymore, is all the versions of you that you don't show anybody.

Everybody tries so hard to remember me, that they're forgetting the real me, in favor of you.

Trees?

I fucking hated that orchard.

I ended up there, once, when it had been way too long since I was high. I was trying to fix myself, and I had this stupid idea that being around nature would help, and I walked there, and I laid there. I laid there, and looked up at the sky. It was disorienting. It felt like falling, like I had absolutely no grip, and no control. And the branches were stealing all of the sunlight, breaking it apart and leaving all these shadows.

And I stopped climbing trees when I got to middle school. Fuck that. Standing on top of the world isn't all that great. There's just more room to fall, and the higher you get, the more it'll hurt. And you'll never be high enough to really touch the sky. Even if you're at the top of the tallest tree.

And all your pretty dreams...the Appalachian Trail, and writing a book, and learning to sail…

Yeah right. Those might be your dreams, Evan Hansen, but they sure as hell weren't mine. Snowboarding, or playing the saxophone, or learning architecture, those crazy modern buildings that have sculptures of half of a car crashing out of them, or little mirrors that ripple like a waterfall all down the front, or that swoop and curve like they aren't even buildings…

That was what I wanted to do. That was what I thought about when I had plans. When I was high enough that anything was easy to imagine, and everything was possible, and funny, and amazing…

Nobody knows that, now.

Thanks to you.

There was a reason we were never friends for real. We had different dreams. We were different people.

But everybody forgets that, now.

As for talking about girls. Well…I had girls, and I didn't want any of them. I didn't give a damn about any of those fragile little goth chicks. Or any girls, really—those were just the ones who thought the whole stoner-skater thing was appealing, and put up with me experimenting. But you...oh no, because of you, everybody thinks the only man I loved was my dad, and they'll forget that people like me exist. I probably won't even get counted in that faggots-are-more-likely-to-kill-themselves statistic everybody always throws around!

God, Evan Hansen.

You selfish, idealistic bastard.

You tried to have everyone forget the hard part of this. No one deserves to be forgotten! Everyone needs a helping hand! And that's all anyone needs! Just pay attention and love them and be their friend! Accept the hard parts because you know they're trying!

After all, that's what you needed. So it must be what everyone needs.

All of us with our cracking minds and our suicidal spirals…we're all the same. We're all fixable, with a little help, and a little friendship…

Everybody wants to remember to help.

So they forget that, sometimes, we don't want help, and sometimes, we don't deserve it.

They forget that it hurts, sometimes, to be around people like me. That there's a reason I didn't have any friends, because I wasn't worth their time. That people like me push people away, that we don't always want people, that we're sick of being touched, and of all your annoying voices, and of people thinking they can fix us when we can't.

They have to forget, so they can cope.

But no, everyone wants to remember us.

And it's painful to remember someone who hurts you. So instead of remembering, you romanticize.

You want the truth?

I was a dick.

I did think about shooting up the school, sometimes, you know? I wondered what it would feel like. If it would help. To see someone else suffering, just for once. To see everybody else exactly as weak and as fucked-up as they made me, with all their laughs and their teasing and whatever other society bullshit they went along with just because, without seeing me. I thought it might be nice, to have a little control.

And god, violence feels good, sometimes. Like lighting a match and just letting it burn, all the way down, until it burns your fingertips, right? I pictured the blood flying just the same way.

I never did it, but...still. I thought about it. I imagined it, sometimes, when it got really hard to sleep. Which makes me a dick, even if I wouldn't have ever done it, really. No way. I didn't want to hurt anyone that bad. You'd have to be a sadist, you'd have to really hate people, and I was just sick of them…

But there's still something so powerful about being in charge of death. Saying fuck-you to fate, and just...doing it. Killing. The universe or God or whatever had plans, but you don't have to listen to them.

But now everybody forgets about that.

They forget how close it got, and how I might've killed someone else, if I hadn't killed myself, and they just say that my death was a tragedy.

It was more complicated than that, but they simplify it, and they dumb it down, so everybody can grasp it. And then they forget about me, because I was complicated.

I hated my family. You told them I loved them.

But at the end, I was just sick of it.

My mom and my dad, full of their self-righteous bullshit, so sure that I was still their good little boy, and this was a phase I'd grow out of. Half of why I killed myself was a fuck-you to them, you know? They didn't own me, they couldn't buy me with all their gifts and their money, and they were wrong when they said that they could fix everything. They could give me the world, they said…

But they couldn't, not if I wouldn't take it.

God, I hated them. They just hid from all their issues behind their money, and then got pissed at me for doing the same thing with drugs. They'd yell and they'd scream, and then they'd try to hug me and slap me on the back and make up for it. I was so sick of them.

But they get to forget about that, now. They get to forget that they hated me, sometimes, and that they'd yell, and sometimes they were bigger assholes than me, and that sometimes I was an asshole…

Because you give them this pretty perfect picture to play with.

And my sister.

You think I noticed her? I stopped paying attention to who she dated and what she wore and what she doodled when she was bored and what the fuck she was doing to her hair when she stopped laughing at my jokes and wanting to play games with me and sneaking into my room to cuddle in the mornings and actually being original, instead of just parroting back whatever our parents said. For the record: that was years ago, now. God, she was just such a stupid bitch, and you could never get away from her…

I was so sick of her.

Yeah, we had good moments. She'd tease me, and I'd tease her back. Or I'd give her little pieces of nature that I found lying around, rocks and feathers and crazy leaves, all lined up on her desk, and she'd doodle me little pictures of stars and shit, and slide it under my door.

But at the same time, those were those few moments, and most of them were when I was high—and as soon as she figured that out, she'd get judgmental and angry, and everything would fall apart.

I said I was going to kill her, and a lot of the time, I meant it.

But now, she gets to think that I loved her. That I spent every minute watching her.

It's fucking ridiculous.

She gets to forget everything that was hard about it, in favor of some story you made up.

They forget everything that was bad, and so they forget me, because I was bad.

Maybe I didn't start out that way.

Maybe you're right about that, out of all your inspirational bullshit. Maybe everyone starts out good, maybe nobody's born bad...

But I sure as hell ended up that way. I was mean, and bitter, and high most of the time—that was how I spent all their money, on drugs. By the way.

I shoved people over in the hallways. I failed tests. I flipped off teachers. I smashed up the principal's car, once. I shoved you over, Evan. Probably the only time we talked.

I told my sister I was going to kill her.

And you can't ignore all that. But you tried to.

And because you came in with your stories, people'll hear those, and they'll forget about mine. And who I really was.

No one deserves to be forgotten.

But sometimes, people do.

Sometimes, you have to forget. Because otherwise, it just hurts too much.

Sometimes, my parents don't want to think that I died bitter and lonely and hating them, without a single hope for the future. Even if that's what kills people—even if I did kill myself because I was sick of myself. Because I was a piece of shit, and because everyone around me knew it-even though they were worse. Because there was literally nothing.

I hated my family and our school and myself and every college I could've gone to or future I could've had. So they forget that I told them, over and over, that I didn't have friends, and I didn't want to talk to them. Because that way they can believe it hurt me a little less, and they can believe that they were a little bit less of failures. They can blame even more of it on a mental illness, because there's even less reason for me to do what I did. So they forget me. They forget most of my entire fucking life.

Sometimes, everyone I hurt wants to forget about it, because otherwise, they can't mourn as well, and then they forget. My sister has to forget that I wanted to kill her, because if she thinks about that, she can't just be sad, she's all sorts of angry too, and then she's guilty, and in even more pain than if I was just misunderstood, and she could be sad about me. So she forgets.

Even when I was alive. Everyone around me had to forget that I treated them like shit. They had to forget that they were hurt, and that I ignored their love, and used their money for drugs, and threw away everything they gave me. Because otherwise, they were enabling me. It was at least a little bit their fault. And if they forgot how I acted then, and remembered a little kid, they had hope...and god forbid they lose that, even if I did. They had to forget the worst of what I did, to be able to deal with me.

Sometimes, people have to forget.

So can I really blame you for letting everyone forget me?

It's what they wanted to do. They would've done it anyways, eventually.

Does it really make you that bad of a person for making it easier?

It probably hurt less this way. It probably kept my family together.

Can I really be pissed at you for that?

I probably shouldn't be.

But I'm sure as hell going to be.

And if that's uncomfortable...you might as well just forget it.

Fuck you.

Sincerely,

Me.

P.S. What a cute, revolting little joke. What a catchy way to get people to forget that I hated myself, and that "me" was one of the worst things I could think of to be. Not to mention that I would never have been that sappy and cliché.