London Falling

At times I avoided her enough that she found herself too busy to execute her most cruel punishments on me. The days father went to the Royal London Hospital to meet with his colleagues and peers were the days I feared the most. There was nobody to protect me. Her sadistic behavior to me was unimaginable to a small boy. I had my heart broken in the spring of my life. There were days that she would lock me in the pantry and I would sit there on the floor and cry for her. For hours I would cry for my mother, but she would never answer. I would hear her in the parlor teaching playing games with my siblings. They would laugh and sing and carry on, all of them. I saw through a window what a mother could be like, though I would never have a mother like that. My mother burned me with smoldering matches and forced me to eat soap flakes while the other children enjoyed treats of fancy shaped ice creams and jellies. We were all so young when it started and so isolated from the outside world that we thought this was n ormal. I believed that I deserved this, no matter how much I hated it or how much it hurt me. I never knew how wrong she was until it was too late and I had become a twisted version of the child I could have been. My daily life was so heavily laced with violence and hatred, even when I left my home to attend the university. I excelled academically while I was constantly reprimanded for my ill behavior toward my fellow students.

I have not touched morphine in nearly a week’s time. I haven’t the money for it any longer. I refuse to sell my possessions and without an income and a financial dismissal from my father, I have no hopes to feel my ‘lover’s’ embrace anytime soon. I have no desire to seek employment, nor the desire to work.

I remember reading a poem in my youth, which in the past few weeks has settled comfortably in my mind, calling to me with its allegorical references. It was called Goblin Market. It was about a woman lured to eat forbidden fruit that would result in her addiction to its divine flavor and exotic palate. She returned to the goblin men for more of their luscious treats but to no avail. They could not be found. She wasted away slowly until her sister came to her rescue.

Morphine is my fruit, yet I have no one to rescue me. I will not sit by while I waste away, creeping further into madness. I stay up night after night, watching women pass my in the streets, fantasizing deeply about what I could do to them in darkened alleys and yards. I cannot continue this life. I cannot persistently blame my mother’s wrongdoings for mine. It is time to secure some accountability and end this. I know only one way.

If you are reading this, I am no doubt dead to this world.

I do not need your forgiveness for the deeds I have exacted on Whitechapel, only God’s.

I hope beyond all hopes that He is merciful.

If not, I take my place next to my mother, in Hell.

Goodnight, diary.

James Francis Deeming