Sarah kane’s final letter to kyler, my spiritual sensei, not to be released

“Kyler, I have no faith that there is life before birth or after death. In fact, I have reached a point where my one hope is that death is the fucking end because I don't want more life. I want less. To accept the argument against suicide, I would have to accept that there was a meaning to life and there isn't. Any system...”

Kyler, to me - “By the way, I don't agree with this letter, but that's another thing. Any system of thought that claims there is any life other than this terrible present suggests that there is meaning, and that that meaning is the improvement of oneself in order to more perfectly reflect and worship or be transformed into some other being. And that's not a meaning I wish to participate in.”

“I don't and can't believe I chose life. Why would I do a thing like that? Vasilis, who was a friend of hers from the mental hospital, who later killed himself soon after Sarah, Vasilis is worse. He's now acutely anorexic again.

He's lost about 10 kilograms since New Year's Eve and is emaciated. It makes me angry and depressed, but there's nothing I can do. Having starved myself in the past, I know that there are two ways back. You either take responsibility for your own eating or the responsibility is taken away and you're forced onto a drip. I chose control. Vasilis chose the drip. I think he's heading there again.

“I spoke to Alana a week ago. That's a whole story unto itself. I just have to interject. She was in love with Alana, and Alana was supposed to speak at Sarah's memorial, and I was the only one who knew what Alana looked like. and I was in charge of finding her. Alana, it turns out, was stuck locked in her hotel room and couldn't get to the memorial, which helps... which makes you wonder...

How could she be locked in her as if Sarah didn't want her there? It's very bizarre. That's a long story. And the whole monologue from her play Crave that was read by a man at her memorial, that monologue was actually word for word a letter to Lana.

until very long. That's as much as I can tell you right now. She's well. I also spoke to Mark eventually. Mark is the playwright who wrote the play Shopping and Fucking.

Although he avoided any mention of New Year's Eve where I saw him the last time I saw Sarah was New Year's Eve in London about 1998. And I didn't like Mark very much. And my brother is fine. He's been off work with a sinus problem and he's used it.”

Okay, anyway. Sorry about the weirdness of this letter. I just wanted to get in touch, say hello, let you know I'm okay. But I'm aware I'm not in the best of moods. The presence of a deadline is bothering me, even though it's several months away. Look after yourself, Kyler. I'm glad I saw you, even though it was a strange time. You're my friend, and it's always good to have you around.

I'm just sorry that my general unhappiness affected you so much. Much love, always, Sarah.

Damn.

She's one of the best friends I've ever had in my life, and I've lost a lot of friends. That's a whole other subject that's happened recently. I think I told you that my mentally ill friend... ended our friendship but sarah was not mentally ill she may have been in a she knew exactly what she was doing and i disagree that she was actually psychotic or you know she was in this institution but…

it feels it was a very conscious decision

well i don't know if it was her decision somebody else's decision but um i mean she wanted to kill herself so that's why they put her there i

No, I mean it was a conscious almost grounded decision on her end to take her own life.

Oh, definitely. And there's a number of things I tried to do, like sending her that Crowley story, which didn't work. It was such a wonderful story because Crowley tried to encourage the guy who was going to jump off the cliff. He encouraged him to do it.

Yeah.

Because that was his will.

Yeah.

But at one point in the story, he says, of course, I want to encourage you to do your will, but there's always that theory that you're interfering with your own, I forget how he explained it, that you're interfering with your own divine purpose, or something like that. That's the part that Sarah couldn't buy into. But anyway, I want to tell you, I want to skip to a little bit later. How long after that did she kill herself?

Yeah. And not too much longer. Right after she submitted the play 448 Psychosis to her agent, like three days later or something like that. I don't remember exactly, but it wasn't too far away. And I got to read a copy of 448 Psychosis on the first day of the performance. They weren't allowed to give it out.

But they gave one to me and I went to the Earl's Court Cemetery and read it there and cried and cried before I actually saw the play that night. What I wanted to tell you was at the end of the play, which wiped us all out, like completely wiped us out, the last line of the play is, please open the curtain. Yeah.

The whole cast marched over to the wall of the theater and opened the wall looking out on Sloan Square, London, like at sunset. And it was the most incredible thing because they said, please open the curtains and they opened the whole theater. They opened the wall of the theater and we completely, completely lost it. And her agent told me after the show that Sarah would have liked

Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah.

Hey, thank you so much for sharing this with me.

that you appreciate all this and you're so I mean when I saw this paper I said oh my god I'm gonna have to I have to read this but I had no idea it would be so articulate and so really spot on as Sarah said about me so

Now, a little bit of background, as fast as I can. I was doing, I did some purple candle on, I think I was using Seal of Solomon oil to further my spiritual something. And I don't usually do this. This is not something I usually do. And when that candle was burning,

I don't even normally meditate in a normal way. But when that candle was burning, it was a, I forget what it was called, a purple Solomon's seal candle for higher spiritual stuff. I had a meditation where my guide said, Sarah is there and would like to speak to you if you're willing.

Do you like the practice of mediums? Yeah. Yeah. Hmm.

never done that before. And it used Solomon's seal oil, which I'd never used. So I thought I would try it. This is a long time ago. So, and it produced this effect that my guide, you know, in a meditation said, Sarah, would you like to speak to Sarah? She's there now. And so I said, yes, I would. Um, and not if, but when you read my, um,

my book Mercury's Choice, which has a lot of Sarah in it. But first I recommend you read the book that you have. But I think Mercury's Choice will be, which is fiction, but...

In the end, there's this whole cosmic ending there where, I'm giving it away, but the main character dies and goes to the spiritual school. Not in heaven, but in the afterlife. It's like a spiritual school. And that's where I spoke to Sarah. She was in this quote-unquote spiritual school that apparently everybody goes to after you die. So according to this

So it was a full-on vision. It was a vision and a sound bite, you know, mostly sound. However... And was it preemptive to your novel or after?

experience of the idea of this spiritual school that everybody goes to after they die that that's now in my novel mercury's choice at the end um i'm giving the ending away however um that was inspired by this contact with sarah uh

And it was very, very real and very profound. In fact, she told me something that I later told her brother, and I wish I didn't because her brother thinks I'm totally nuts. He thinks I'm totally crazy. But she told me that she would reincarnate as Simon's

And she would reincarnate as a boy, the boy she always wanted to be. And foolishly, when I got together with Simon for a beer in London, I told him that. And I wish I hadn't, because I think Simon just thinks I'm totally nuts. But it was very, very real, and I would love more than anything

Because Simon and I used to run into each other all the time in London and New York. And every time we did, he'd make a face like, oh my God, I'm running into Kyla. The thing is, if I ever saw Simon, oh, he told me at the time, well, he would need a girlfriend because he has no girlfriend to have a son with yet. But if I ever ran into Simon with a young boy,

I know that that boy would run over to me and embrace me. That's beautiful. And then I would know that that boy was there. Yeah. Reincarnate. And, you know, the Indians believe in this all the time. And all the great gurus, you know. So I'm in no contact with Simon. He told me to send that book to his agent. And this is years ago. He never responded.

I sent it to Simon Cain, care of, um, no. He never answered. And I'm just going to leave it at that. I just think he thinks I'm too weird. Was he close to Sarah? Sorry, what? Was he close to Sarah? He was, but, uh...

I always wanted to get close to him because I was so endeared to him because he was Sarah's brother. And I got to meet him on New Year's Eve, that party. I didn't like the party. I left the party. That's where the playwright Mark Ravenhill was. And Simon was there. And Sarah was there. But Sarah was drunk and ready to kill herself. Oh, jeez. I found two posters of her play Crave in the Dickens Museum. I said, Sarah, look what I found in the Dickens Museum.

You can't kill yourself. I gave her one of those posters.

the other one now framed in my bathroom which you'll see someday when you come over here but anyway um there's so many stories i'm trying to consolidate yeah did you live in london for a while or were you just visiting i only was there on quick vacations but every time i saw a play of sarah's and visited sarah and everything um but uh i mean i would go there as an excuse to see her plays but i missed blasted i missed her first two plays um

Yeah. 100%. Yeah.

I don't doubt it for a second. Yeah. But when I tell you this next story, you'll believe that even more. Now, I mentioned Sarah Kane's memorial.

And the weird part is that Elana, the woman she was unrequitedly in love with, and wrote that monologue in her play that they performed at the memorial, that Elana was locked into her hotel room and couldn't get to the memorial. And I was the only one who knew who she looked like. And I said, I'm sorry, Elana is not here. So they started without Elana, and Elana never showed up. What was the monologue from?

Oh yeah, I haven't read that. Which also has Crowley references, and really, and one of the final lines is, is, take me, Satan, I'm yours. I mean, it's, that's a whole other subject. That play is, I saw that play, I think, twice. But anyway, when I was there...

But what I want to tell you is this. Let me get to the real story. That'll blow your mind. So at Sarah's memorial, they said they want to close the memorial with a song that Sarah requested they play at her memorial. And it was the song No Surprises by Radiohead. And do you know Radiohead at all? Of course, of course.

which is a song about suicide, taking the carbon monoxide and stuff. But I didn't know it at the time, and I don't even think I realized that when they played it at her memorial. But what I did was I went home and immediately got the OK Computer CD. But no, it was a cassette.

You don't know if you have listened to it yet. Still? You don't know if you've listened to it yet to this day?

You think so?

and uh well i want to know about both of it so i'll there's a time hopefully we got time oh shit's fucked up right now but we're gonna we're gonna make it through this is the story um so it's soon after i got back from sarah's memorial um

Oh, and I had those visions of talking to Sarah. Oh, no, I had already started writing Mercury's Choice. And I knew that Sarah was in it. And I wanted to know if Sarah was aware that I was writing this book. It was in the early stages of it. So anyway...

This is soon after the London trip and the memorial. I can't remember the exact thing. But I was having dinner, Indian dinner, with my friend Angel that night, this particular night. And...

I told Angel at dinner, I said, Angel, it's weird, but all day long, I have this message that I have to get to Tower Records, which was my favorite place. It doesn't exist anymore on 4th Street and Broadway. I used to go there all the time just to hang out. So anyway, I said, I have this message that I have to get to Tower Records all day long, but I haven't gotten there yet. I said, after dinner, Angel, would you like to come with me? And...

He said, no, he's got to get home. So I finally went to Tower Records before it closed. Because it was pretty late. And as I walked into Tower Records, something told me, go upstairs to the mezzanine level. Go up there. Go upstairs.

And when I went upstairs, they were playing a song I'd only heard once or twice, and it was No Surprises by Radiohead. And it was totally new to me at that time. I didn't know it yet. I didn't know Radiohead yet. And so the second I went upstairs...

were playing that song um and it was later uh explained to me by my guide that it was all arranged um that i wouldn't make it to tower records it's not that they put it on the moment i walked in the door no it was destined that it was going to be playing in the evening yeah hence my delay you knew when to come even though it seemed maybe like you were lagging or something

Yeah, and I go there. They said it was planned that way, and it's a sign. It was meant to be as a sign that Sarah was very aware of the book I was writing about her, largely about her. So that's the story, and I'll never forget it. That's beautiful. Do you get it? Yeah.

I just can't imagine. It's crazy. Was it like a small group of people, or was it just the room? The mezzanine was... You see, I often walked through the mezzanine because I went to the classical section, which was behind the mezzanine. So the mezzanine had... I don't know what you call it, like show tunes or something. There was a little...

It was a nice section, but it wasn't the downstairs where all the rock and roll was. And it wasn't into the classical section. It was up the stairs in this middle section called the mezzanine. And that's where they were playing No Surprises. And I actually heard something that said, go up the stairs. Yeah. And...

And this was before I was even as advanced as I am now. In a way, I was more advanced then because I don't do work like that anymore. I don't go into these meditations and contact people on the other side like that. This was very unique for me. I don't do that kind of work. But it's because I was told... And it affected everything.

Like give me time to breathe. She had chicken. Yeah, a little tongue would be nice.

I have no faith that there is life before birth or after death. In fact, I have reached a point where my one hope is that death is the fucking end because I don't want more life. I want less. To accept the argument against suicide, I would have to accept that there was a meaning to life and there isn't. Any system...

By the way, I don't agree with this letter, but that's another thing. Any system of thought that claims there is any life other than this terrible present suggests that there is meaning, and that that meaning is the improvement of oneself in order to more perfectly reflect and worship or be transformed into some other being. And that's not a meaning I wish to participate in.

I don't and can't believe I chose life. Why would I do a thing like that? Vasilis, who was a friend of hers from the mental hospital, who later killed himself soon after Sarah, Vasilis is worse. He's now acutely anorexic again.

I spoke to Alana a week ago. That's a whole story unto itself. I just have to interject. She was in love with Alana, and Alana was supposed to speak at Sarah's memorial, and I was the only one who knew what Alana looked like.

and I was in charge of finding her. Alana, it turns out, was stuck locked in her hotel room and couldn't get to the memorial, which helps... which makes you wonder...

until very long. That's as much as I can tell you right now. She's well. I also spoke to Mark eventually. Mark is the playwright who wrote the play Shopping and Fucking.

I'm just sorry that my general unhappiness affected you so much. Much love, always, Sarah. Damn. She's one of the best friends I've ever had in my life, and I've lost a lot of friends. That's a whole other subject that's happened recently. I think I told you that my mentally ill friend...

ended our friendship but sarah was not mentally ill she may have been in a she knew exactly what she was doing and i disagree that she was actually psychotic or you know she was in this institution but it was a very conscious decision well i don't know if it was her decision somebody else's decision but um i mean she wanted to kill herself so that's why they put her there i

No, I mean it was a conscious decision on her end to take her own life. Oh, definitely. And there's a number of things I tried to do, like sending her that Crowley story, which didn't work. It was such a wonderful story because Crowley tried to encourage the guy who was going to jump off the cliff. He encouraged him to do it. Yeah. Because that was his will. Yeah.

Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah.

Hey, thank you so much for sharing this with me.

Do you like the practice of mediums? Yeah. Yeah. Hmm.

my book Mercury's Choice, which has a lot of Sarah in it. But first I recommend you read the book that you have. But I think Mercury's Choice will be, which is fiction, but...

So it was a full-on vision. It was a vision and a sound bite, you know, mostly sound. However... And was it preemptive to your novel or after?

You can't kill yourself. I gave her one of those posters.

Yeah. 100%. Yeah.

I don't doubt it for a second. Yeah. But when I tell you this next story, you'll believe that even more. Now, I mentioned Sarah Kane's memorial.

You don't know if you have listened to it yet. Still? You don't know if you've listened to it yet to this day?

You think so?

This is soon after the London trip and the memorial. I can't remember the exact thing. But I was having dinner, Indian dinner, with my friend Angel that night, this particular night. And...