Dear whoever is reading this,

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I found the play brilliant, an illustration of this grand country we call home. The ‘insane’ are beautiful don’t you think?
 

Sometimes I sit alone, sometimes surrounded by all my friends and feel the pull of it. Other times I am in a lovers embrace and a deep feeling of illness sinks into my stomach. My mind never shuts off, I pick up the pen and write to you because it connects me. I am not pumped full of lithium and I have never had to lay down on a trundle and had my brain fried by an electric magnetic hope. I roam the streets of Melbourne, sit at the back of theatres and watch imitations of what society assumes the world is. I also find myself paralysed in bed, my heart not existing and my bones fading away to nothing. Emptiness exists inside me. In other fleeting moments, an airline ticket and a big fat cigar beckon my name as I bask in the glow of my achievements, grandeur is a common concept here you see. A roller-coaster is the most common expression used to describe my being. I have a girlfriend, a job, and a bounty of friends, but if I label myself as a bi-polar freak I lose most of it. Isolation and degradation by a seemingly ignorant community sees the country we live in sweep us all under the rug, one of many times us outliers feel a pseudo- belonging. If I don’t share my disease, if I am not judged by society and I don’t get locked away next to Roy, my life goes on. What if I was to be locked away, this letter may have never reached you, and you may never have heard about me. I am not put on show, but my disease is, imitated for the ecstasy of crowds.  It’s all fun and games until the undertow drowns me.

 

I hope you enjoyed the performance.

Yours Truly, Mitch