THIS IS ANOTHER ONE OF THE LETTERS/WRITINGS MY BROTHER WROTE FOR ME, BUT I NEVER RECEIVED.  IT WAS AMONGST HIS DIARIES AND OTHER DOCUMENTS I FOUND AFTER HIS DEATH, HE HAD WRITTEN “NOT SENT” ON IT. IT IS DATED 16 FEB 1994 .

I’ve been thinking about the nature of these letters I’ve been writing to you these last few months, and it’s kind of strange.  When I think about it, I’m not sure whether I want you to reply or not, and more or less knowing that you won’t reply, the letters take more of a diary-like tone.  I can write just about anything because to all intents and purposes, I’m committing these sentiments, these thoughts and observations to (dramatic as it sounds), the Void.  For all I know, you don’t even get them.  I may have the post code wrong, or whatever.  All these thousands of words may be lying in a dead letter office – anything.  I suppose that makes them free.  And I suppose that it makes them letters to myself, exercises in self-indulgence.  A confessional to keep myself from blurting my thoughts and secrets to people, untrustworthy as they all are.  And here I was thinking myself so noble for keeping up contact and really, it comes down to nothing but emotional vomit, plopped in my lap for photocopying and dissection.

I went to the park for lunch, sat reading my Jean Genet novel, “The Thief’s Journal”.  There’s something about French writers that brings out the Year 10 poet in my, makes me look for significance in everything, Which is ridiculous.

I saw a bumble-bee, hovering from grass-flower to grass-flower, and I noticed for the first time how fast they move, darting left and right, their speed is not in the linear sprint, but in the hovering search for more nectar.  To be able to move like that, from simply eating flowers.  I thought at the time what a beautiful thing it was, but beautiful is a word too hackneyed for it, after all,giving something the mantle of beauty is not such a gift after all.  Beauty can be found in the most unsavoury of places.

Watch a Sam Peckinpah film and watch his treatment of violence.  It’s filmed like a sex scene, which may or may not be appropriate.  An adult male’s hormonal system secretes similar substances when he watches pornos and violence on screen.  Can’t remember where I heard that.  I saw a rubber glove on the pavement outside, you know, the latex kind, like a giant condom for the hand, and it made me think about the parallels between the two appendages.  Both brimming with violence and (pro) creative power.  Or the converse.  But the significance of the glove and the condom, both metaphors of a modern age, limitation and isolation.  Soft, impermeable barriers, latex dykes against what?  I don’t think I’m making much sense here, I think I’ve been reading too much, looking for something where there is nothing.  (Now there’s a metaphor for life!) What difference does it make anyway, I won’t send this letter to you, I may never show it to anyone, though I lie.  I will show it to someone because I need approval, evaluation.  There, I’ve thrown down a gauntlet, can I show this to someone with my motivations laid so bare?  What is stronger, my need for approval or my fear of ridicule?  And to whom would I show the letter, sister?  Perhaps I could mail it to myself – a rather theatrical notion, not without its merits.  I’d have to open it as soon as I received it, and read it in  whatever frame of mind I happened to be in.  A cold review, not coloured by my usual mood which takes me when I decide to re-read my earlier efforts at self-expression.  I’m in a strange mood neither here nor there.  Not in the usual indulgent, self-pitying mood that I wallow in when feeling wordy, yet not really exalted or anything so shining.  Maybe it’s the lack of sleep and too much strong coffee.