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 Feb 2014 Tori Jurdanus
Jane Doe
you sank into my skin when I met you, placed your hand over my heart and dug deeper.
Now you're in my bones.
taking up space between my rusty joints
and splintered cartridge.
I could take a scalpel
and cut you out, bleed you out like bad
humors.
if you've rested between my porcelain femurs
does that make you part of me?
Or a tumor.
I'd rather like to stay with you.
To hear the breath inside your words
To know the fever, the heartbeat
Along the lines in your chest.
I'd like to stay there.

I hope you like it here
In this space where I build
Bridges across the gap,
And try to see with my eyes forward.

I don't always succeed.
I try again for me,
To see your words along the walls,
Along the lines that you draw,
To close gaps
And build bridges.
I try to see that you build bridges.

I try to see that you love me,
Like I hope you love me.
I think I need help with the knowing,
Because no beacon of light has lead me there,
No dots on the map have shown me the way.
For I fight myself.
I slash lines along the walls,
Cross mark the pages of words
That you wrote with a fever,
With your heart beating in your chest
And your breath falling along tattered sheets of paper.
And all I'll see is paper.

I'll burn this and try again,
For me.
 Jan 2014 Tori Jurdanus
Jane Doe
there's a lot in me that wants you closer
but more in me that doesn't care
there's a lot in me that wants you far away
more that wants my blood in your hair.
most of me
while we're being honest
claws at my own chest
and is broken at best.
Integrity: adherene to moral principles, honesty..and the quality or condition of being whole..undivided.

Cheating:  to deprive someone of something valuable by use of deceit.

         Most, if not all of us, need, and very much desire physical intimacy (yes, sx).  Can I say sx  on here? ...I'm not sure. Sx is like the greatest thing ever invented. It's right up there with eating and sleeping.  Everybody likes it..everybody wants it. But when someone is in an exclusive relationship with another, married or not, you don't get to have sx with whoever you want anymore. True, everyone makes mistakes sometimes, no one is perfect, and at times we are weak, for one reason or another. But an honorable man or woman...a person with integrity and inner discipline...recovers..and learns from the mistake...and doesn't repeat it.  That is not what cheaters do.  Cheaters are habitual. That means repeat offenders.  Cheaters talk about things like honor and will power and integrity, but they don't practice it in the place it counts the most, with their beloved.  With cheaters, it isn't about a "mistake".... a one time thing they feel horrible about afterward and promise themselves never to repeat.  Cheaters simply don't care. It's not that they don't care about the girlfriend/boyfriend, or fiance or spouse that they have made a promise of committment to. They do care...they just care more about themselves. It is the promise of faithfulness itself that is meaningless to them...it is simply empty of any real sincerity.  But the problem is that the promise is accepted by the loved one as sincere.  That promise is relied upon and as important as though it were tangible.  So irrespective of how much the cheater spits upon the promise everytime he or she cheats...that promise is HOLY.  Yes, that's right..HOLY.  What does that mean...holy?  Like church holy..or holy water holy?  How is a promise holy?  Well, really one could argue that any promise is holy, but how much more so when a person believes and loves and trusts another...putting all of their faith and future hope on a promise of real love and commitment.  That trust and love make the promise holy.  It is not the hollow promise itself, but that loving reliance upon the promise that creates the holiness...the pure beauty of love... and the faith that it is returned exclusively to the beloved.

          The true sadness is that the beloved will eventually find out about the cheater and then the house of cards will come tumbling down.  Not only is the relationship destroyed, but the trust, faith, and love is destroyed as well, and it may be difficult to ever trust again, in any relationship.  Such immense pain can be caused.  It is amazing that cheaters don't seem to care or think about the consequences of these indiscretions.  Do any of them think ahead of time about the people and/or god forbid, children that will be left lying in the wake of their utterly selfish acts?  The people that will be left trying to pick of the pieces of their hearts, and try to rationalize whether anything that they had believed in was actually real.

          The question is, what and who does the cheater value?? What does the cheater respect?  Do they even value their own selves?  Does a person who thinks nothing of cheating on a regular basis, or every chance they get on their loved one value and respect anything?  Clearly there is no respect for the promise made. There is no respect for the one whom the cheater purports to love.  There is no respect for the man or woman the cheater is doing the cheating with...because clearly that person is just being used to fulfill a carnal desire..and arguably the cheater doesn't even respect him or herself, because a person with an inner moral compass respects him or herself enough not to do things that will cause pain to others, especially those who love him or her.

          So maybe the cheater does not have any real understanding of what is holy..the meaning of a promise...an understanding of integrity...of sacrifice...of the pure beauty of love.  If a man or a woman is in a relationship and can't keep their **** legs closed...then that person has no business being in a relationship.  Its just that simple.  You can't have your cake and eat it too, and then want to eat someone else's cake as well.  If you are so selfish and deceitful that you can't be honest and faithful to the one you profess to love...then do that person a favor and either agree with them to have an open relationship, or let them go.  Because the act of cheating is entirely selfish in every way.  Cheaters want the security and benefits of an ongoing relationship with their significant other, and they want to mess around on the side as well because then they have the best of both worlds.

          But you don't have to go to church or believe in any particular religion to know that cheating is wrong.  It is a hurtful despicable act made even more vicious because it is intentional and hurts the person who loves the perpetrator.  How many crimes are like that?  ....the most heinous.

          So, if you are a cheater..don't ever talk about honor and integrity and code of conduct.  You have no right to utter those words.  Because when you live by  principles of ethical behavior, you don't pick and choose when to apply those principles.  You don't decide that they apply in some areas of your life, on some days, but not on others.  Think before you act..think about who will suffer from your actions...think about the destruction you will cause...do not believe that you can get away with it forever, because eventually the law of the universe will catch up to you.  There is retribution for every act in which we inflict pain on another...for every time we make a promise and then break it..whether anyone ever knows about it or not...just some food for thought
 Jan 2014 Tori Jurdanus
Jane Doe
I like you, like I think you’re cute, like I wanna kiss you, like I wanna go down on you… Wait, sorry.
Hey, I like you like, I think you’re pretty, like I want us to get along, hey! I really like this song wanna dance? I like your tight pants, I don’t mean to stare it’s just kind of there like Wow, sorry that came out wrong, Hey I’m Esther, nice to meet you, cute shoes. Who knew converse would create this kind of tension. Do you watch Dr Who? You hate Moffat? Me too.
I’m sorry this is supposed to be a love poem and I’m blabbering,
Hey! I like you, like I think  your finger tips are spider webs the way you pull me in, Andrew Garfield, spider man, have you seen that one? I’m a huge fan.
Hey, I like you, like I think you’re cute, like I wanna  take you out on dates and hold your hand in parking lots and line ups, like your laugh is contagious and your eyes are outrageously beautiful.

You’re pretty, smiling eyes and nervous laughter, not quite caught up in the moment.
I’d sing you a love song; I’d walk ten thousand miles. I catch my breath when your lips part to smile.
Your eyes sparkle when you see something you love; I wonder what it feels like to be the subject of your stares? The object of your affection.
So, I think you’re adorable; it’s deplorable how much I wanna kiss you.
Hey Tight jeans! Was that rude? Because I can be crude, and kind of mean, in the sense that I say what I think and a lot of people say I’m forward…
Take me out tonight; the stars are just bright enough for me to see your features, I’d paint pictures of your hands if mine would just stop shaking. I’m afraid,
because you’re just a little bit older and more bold than I’d have expected you to be, but you see it’s not written in the stars that we should be together, here I see in your eyes that you’re excited because you don’t realize this poem is about you, you idiot.
See what I mean, I’m not cautious. Torturous really I couldn’t stand to see you saddened, because  you’re beautiful which is trivial, I mean a man who looks like you must know this right?
Do you like romantic? I could say your eyes are waterfalls and your temples are the gaps in the sidewalks where puddles huddle.
I want to get to know you, I want to hold you while it’s raining, straining to keep my eyes on the movie we’re watching but your face in the half light is ignited
Your nose is the bookmark in the middle of my favourite story, marking the points before the hero has to leave and after he’s realized he can’t stay.
I can feel your heart beating from where we’re dancing, every inch of your body, I’d memorize, your curves and lines like you were my times tables and I wasn’t ever able to get those down so I might have to go over them a few more times before you’re committed to memory.
But now, in the blissful morning after sunrise, you lie.
sleepily kiss my forehead and mumble “I have class”
and I spend the last few seconds before you leave my room admiring your a-
… eyes.
 Dec 2013 Tori Jurdanus
Jane Doe
This is not about you. This is about the demon who lives inside your mind. The one who is starving alongside you, so he gobbles up the good thoughts, the positive reinforcements we try to tell you.
He poisons your food, which is why you won’t eat.
Its the only explanation I can fathom, unless there is another.
Then PLEASE, tell me. I am begging.
This is not about you “habit”. This is about being scared to complement you on your good days. And holding you on your bad ones.
This is about telling you, you can come to me if you need it.
But never knowing how to fix it when you do.
This is seeing a mold infested wound.
By not having the guts to sever it before it grows.
This is not about the food. It is about the ashes you inhale with every drag of the *** between your pale pink fingertips.
This is isn’t killing you, this is suicide.
This is not about the help offered, but the impossibility of accepting it.
This is not about how well you understand yourself.
Rather, how well you understand the world.
Every starving woman I have ever talked to have the kindest hearts.
They see the world with wide eyes and hungry minds, hungry bellies too, but they cannot see to that. So they feed their minds with the sore sights of their over sized bodies in the mirror. CAN’T YOU SEE THAT HE’S LYING.
I’m lying, I love you, more than you love yourself, and it’s hypocritically because you look so paper thin that I look up to you, not just because you’re taller than me.
I stopped.
This is not about me.
This is about you, and loosing you.
To him.
This is about you.
About helping you,
“you’re beautiful, my broken mess”
this is a response to It's not about Food, a poem I found on tumblr.
 Dec 2013 Tori Jurdanus
Jane Doe
I am not your lover, I am not your sister, I am not your friend I don’t depend on your for knowledge I’m not in college to listen to your lies if I try hard enough I can still see you standing there with her.
Do you remember when we met? You told me in Latin that our hearts beat in syncopation and that the trepidation underfoot was caused by the ****** tension. That the earth quake that made my hands shiver would melt like winter into spring if I sprung myself onto you but here’s the thing it didn’t. Of course that didn’t stop us from trying I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t love every second of it.
I can’t say that I never loved you, and I can’t tell you that you were the closest to heaven that I had so far felt but that doesn’t stop the fact that I wasn’t your ******* therapist. I couldn’t fix you, you told them all that I made you fall in love with me just so I could dash your dreams like I enjoyed hearing you scream, darling I’m not that mean. You fell by yourself and I tried to catch you but I couldn’t hold you up to the bar on par with the mentally stable, I wasn’t able to fix you.
That doesn’t mean I didn’t try. When you cried about the darkness I held you in my arms, when the sunlight shone too brightly I shielded you from harm and your rigorous charm melted my cold heart inches apart from where I let you in.
I am not your sin, I am not your sanctum, I am not your addiction, I did not tie you to this post and beat you, I didn’t cheat on you and I didn’t lie. I cannot begin to pretend that I am someone that I’m not for you anymore. You hold me down and call me a ***** but I’m just here hoping you’ll let me walk away from you untouched because I’m not your enemy or your hatred. The battle that is going inside of you has nothing to do with me, can’t you see that?
I’m sorry you’re hurting, I can’t imagine the pain you must be going through it’s just that I throw myself in front of trains for you and you’ve never ushered so much as a thank you. So here’s my response, ***** you! I’d scream from the top of buildings and beckon down the doors of the palaces. I want you to know how much I don’t like you.
 Dec 2013 Tori Jurdanus
Jane Doe
I’ve got a paper cut
you’ve got his girlfriend’s scars.
I’ve got a caterpillar’s sleeping bag
and you’ve got my mind.
He’s got your secrets.
I’ve got them too
I’ve got my wishes.
I’ll always keep from you.
You’ve got lost lovers
and I’ve got time.
I have your mind
You have mine.
So pass me the lighter
and treat me to the fighter
when we get lost in our own disgust
I’ve gotten bored
and you’ve gotten sick
Again
again
Again.
Tell me that I’m stupid
that pride gets in the way
I’m not tired, I’m just insane
but you’ve still got my head
on a platter


I’ve got metaphors that reach to the moon
and back again, things to make you seem
okay
or maybe its better if I just write.
Get out of my head
get out of my head
get out of my head
get out of my head
Stay.
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