Roux Bedrosian
You know,
For all of the infamy bestowed to me,
The horror I’ve accredited,
And the malice that’s been bred to follow–
For all the criticism, critique of my legacy
Meant to strip me apart, vultures at their feast,
As they make me the inhuman one, I wonder,
Has anyone stopped to think –
‘Oh, how frigid the rain must be in London!
How bitterly it must have raged upon his skin, searing bare wrists,
Freezing knuckles mid-incision, sullying the skillfulness of any such work?’
Do they wonder how thin the Ripper’s coat might have been,
And how death might have seized him, too, through a pauper’s threadbare armor?
You know,
Those filthy, wet alleyways were really no safer for me than them.
For Mary and the vermin skittering on Buck’s Row.
For Annie in the sour moss of Hanbury.
Elizabeth, so taken with my ‘shabby-genteel’ appearance.
Catherine, another ghost of Mitre Square, littered amongst the cigarettes.
And Mary, again, taken so apart that I may have found the very pieces
Of myself.
***
Roux Bedrosian is a New Jersey based musician, a lifelong creative writer, and a distinctly amateur adult. They hold a BA from Rutgers University, where they studied nothing about the art of writing. These days, they spend much of their time indulging in all the artistic endeavors that guidance counselors, former friends, and conservative relatives at unpleasant barbecues advised them against. In their fiction writing, they often enjoy exploring macabre topics through humorous, romantic, and absurd lenses. As an avid fan of horror, they seek out similar twists within the expansive genre as both a reader and viewer. At present, they have two cats, a growing collection of vinyl records, a handful of true-to-life ghost stories, and no regrets.