Sweet Mary Jane

Featured art by LH Grey

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Marnie “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night”

Sweet Mary Jane
I know only too well of your pain
The fated night your life was snatched so callously away
Your cries
All in vain
Awhile unglamorous display
The stench of death’s breath
That of ravenous decay
The grave night you were slain
Sweet Mary Jane

Had you been aware of your grisly fate
On the ninth of November, 1888
Then maybe you’d not have had so great a haste
To vacate your safe place
After dark
With red lights in your slipstream
And fright in your heart
The night air it felt frisky
Whistled briskly as it passed
Disinclined to sights
The likes of which could stop a heart from beating
Precious little safe to mark your keeping

Didn’t hear him creeping
Deep in mist as thick as stew
Not a whisper
Heard retreating
Not a fleeting clue
Seeping through the cracks of every heartbeat
Black and blue
No release due
No way back for you

Whitechapel’s liveliest
Unlicensed surgeon
Prizing an item list
Sick to be certain
One swift insertion
Precise in its slicing
Decisively mined through the gristle and rind
This one prior kiss to dying aside
It was frightful
The night that you died

Sweet Mary Jane
It pains greatly to tell of your fate
Of the night your bright light was snatched so callously away
Your cries
All in vain
Awhile unglamorous display
The stench of death’s breath
That of ravenous decay
The grave night you were slain
Sweet Mary Jane
And thus
Each time I die
I cry your name