day 225

Completely re-edited and ready for performance

***

In 1888, the streets of London became the heart of Jack The Ripper’s search for salvation.

These are the women he loved:

The first time I had ever felt so broken was after falling in love with a prostitute.

She was the first woman to ever tell me that I was unlovable

She said I was insane

I am just a little too brilliant

And fascinated by anatomy

I love women who are open to being open.

The second woman to tell me I was unlovable was Miss Mary Nichols

I let her go easily.

Just a hole in her throat and an open chest inviting me to take a look at her heart

And the third woman to tell me I was unlovable was Miss Annie Chapman.

She wouldn’t let me hold her

I placed my arms around her being and she just shrugged

So I made her wear her intestines like her hair

Curly, and slightly off the shoulders

Something to keep her warm until she found warmth in a coffin

Then there was Miss Elizabeth Stride, the fourth woman to call me unlovable

The grocer sold us grapes that day. She was nice. We walked together like man and wife

Until she started walking away

It became man and knife and a bag of grapes that would never become wine for two lovers

The fifth woman to call me unlovable was Miss Catherine Eddowes

Oh what a woman.

She wanted nothing to do with me

But I didn’t have time for a drunken housewife

She squealed a little, but I got the job done

Opened her body up like wings

Showed the streets of London how high she was capable of flying

This is not the kind of woman you play dress up with

She will hurt you in heels and a mouth of broken homes

I kept her ear as a souvenir.

A reminder

That someone out there will always listen to me

The last woman to ever call me unlovable was dear Miss Mary Jane Kelly

Sweetheart would never stand a chance as a housewife

Being six weeks behind payment is not what a real lady does

I drained her of her sins.

I painted her death bed with her own blood.

It was a masterpiece at best.

A chest as a pillow and the other by her foot

Her drunken liver before her step

Intestines by her right hip and her spleen by her left

Chopped off her eyebrows

Chopped off her nose

Chopped off her ears

And chopped off her prose

Oh what a wonderful exhibit

Miss Mary Jane was the definition of naked

They didn’t call me Saucy Jacky for fun.

I emptied out her entire abdominal cavity

I’ve learned that a good whore should never possess any amount of sweetness

The salvation I’ve needed all along was through

the broken wings

the bedroom blood baths

and the brush of a knife