Tori Jurdanus

Tori Jurdanus Jun 2013

She Looks Like a Tiger
See how she places her paws so lightly, so as not to be heard.
Silently, she moves through the crowd, head held high, today she doesn't want to hide.
Depicted in peach coloured stripes. No red, no brown, no blue, no black.
Today, is the first day she felt it was safe to show them.
Asking for the first time in her life, for the world to continue doing what it's always done
Lean on her, sing her our our sorrows so she could sing them back and pretend, that we could not see her scars.
She has always been the brick wall.
The concert hall
The shoulder to cry on.
The logic you would chase after with your pedestrian problems and she was the designated driver.
But when it looks like you're a casual on bridges over troubled waters, there 's no one talking you down from the ledge.

She would never have asked you to.

Hannah, your name sounds like a semi-permanent tattoo.
I hope that's what this poem feels like to everyone who hears it
So that every time they think they know broken,
they feel cold lines crisscrossing their body and can honestly wonder,
was this feeling your blueprint.

But I think you look like tiger.
And I know, I shouldn't give time to some little boys who refuse to use her real name because it fits her to well.
Callin' her some emo, weak hippie freak.
she's just looking for attention.
Because when you're the first person to make it through Hell and back alive, you're a liar.
A hitch hiker piggy backing on someone else's problems.
But her arms served as straightaways for razorblades for nine solid years,
and its no thanks to people like you she's still here.

You think, she should be ashamed of herself. As if scars are a ***** in the armour.
Like she was peer pressured into self-destruction and couldn't resist.
No one asks you:
"Hey there, wanna cut? Wanna, self-mutilate?"

Just like I won't ask you not to hate the idea of someone being that low
That every beat of the heart feels a little like ****** assault, and cutting was the best way she could find to say no.

She looks like a tiger,
and she didn't earn her stripes. People rarely do.
But she has earned the right to wear them for what they are;
Battle scars.
Things she's long overcome.
Her head is held high again.

And I know, I shouldn't be wasting my time on people
Who refuse to use her real name,
but Hannah is still Hannah inside out, upside down,
Backwards, Hannah is still Hannah,
Even with her insides out,
Hannah is still Hannah.
She's still here.

Tori Jurdanus Mar 2013

Aftermath

"We stop looking for monsters under our beds when we realize they're inside of us."
Jordyn Berner

I think I understand that now.

That first night, I felt like I was 8 years old again. Standing at Peggy's Cove watching Hurricane Juan come in.
wondering what's to come.
That's a lie.
'cause I knew you were trouble when you walked in,
I mean, you kissed me, hard, before you even knew my name,
you were sinful, ginful.
but your lips tasted warm, and salty like sea spray on a hot sunny day

On the morning of September 30th, 2003, I woke to find the pillars of my childhood fantasies in ruin, buried in flattened forest behind my house.
I never knew something so wonderful could be so cruel.

I wish I'd remembered that.
You have become the reason I am scared of warm waters again,
You are the reason I feel like I -love-yous can be washed away.
You, you monster.
You Devil you.

And yet, you've shown me grey areas in each of our black and white horror flicks,
How every character thinks, at one point, he is doing something right.
Even God thought Lucifer was beautiful an hour before he fell, I think
there is no such thing as surprise endings, and I think
that we can't help who we love, there are monsters inside all of us.

I, am the reason you're scared of mirrors and for the bags under your eyes

I shoot ***** looks like silver bullets when I'm mad,
I write hate mail and call it poetry.

So, villain, yes, I will show you the spots where you have beat me black and blue
But yes, I will admit I hurt you too
This is the *** calling the kettle black.
Its proof that two monsters can fall in love,

All we ever see is monsters, falling,
beasts only seem beautiful for a little while and beauty is,
Well,
There are no monsters that deserve it..

But I believe God still writes letters to Satan, he's just
forgotten the home address,

Like I believe you are a beautiful full moon,
Howling has always been the best way I can reach you.
You bring out the worst in me.

And the best of me.
There was a time you chose both.

So, maybe, maybe admitting you're a monster isn't such a bad thing.
Maybe we could have learned to live with it.
I say "we" like your claw marks are still fresh on my heart.

Darling, I'm still looking for that third word for passion,
that word for being so deep in love people mistake for homicidal hatred,
The word for people who never deserved to be happy.
I was never happy with you.
I never needed to be.

My beloved monster,
I will tuck your memory into bed with me.
I will never let you go.

Tori Jurdanus Mar 2013

Mike Rosen

wrote a poem.

I can't stop listening to it.

I can't stop
imagining

that one day,
it will reflect a letter you write.
Even if you never send it.

I only wish I could have fixed it,
I bet that girl wishes it too.

Tori Jurdanus Mar 2013

Glitter

To the girl he will cheat on me with,
Forgive me for my naivety, for loving him even though he will not deserve it
for trusting him to go out alone, go home alone,
and for being the reason he leaves you before you wake.
I am so sorry.
You, must be so pretty.

You must know that that is never a good excuse.

That night,
You will have captured his attention while dancing beneath twinkling lights
that catch the gold and silver in your hair just right.

In ten minutes,
He will have asked if he can by you a drink, so that he can watch your red lips move in conversation.

In two hours he will have had you in some quiet place,
He will have enveloped his senses in your feel, your taste, your smell.
He will have told you as if on cue that you, are so good at being pretty.
And witty. And bright. And he will kiss you for it.

He will not know that your "pretty" tonight was not completely meant for him,
It was, just-in-case.

You will wake up tangled in cool sheets, and understand.
Be glad you took the precaution before ******* my lover,
Comprehend that he will never have been worth our time.

Still, for giving him the time,
for giving him this opportunity to tear out my heart and crush it in his fingers,
I thank you in advance.

You, are so good at being pretty.

Your lipstick will stain the collar of his shirt.
The glitter in your hair will stick to his skin.
He will reek of a perfume I have never worn
And I will know.

So, thank you
for making yourself so pretty that night,
just in case he had a girl back home.

Tori Jurdanus Feb 2013

Easy

I've been told my whole life that my life is easy.
I don't disagree. I have a house and a bed and free education, I'm not hungry.
But I've never thought that these are things to be held against me.

As far as I can tell, I've never done this before, I did not choose the way of life where the problems on this earth barely reach me. The questions left behind today, the ones we only now seem to have the power to fix, they're not my fault. If I could, I wouldn't have chose this kind of guilt-tripping, doom-impending "easy".

Things used to be better, so I'm told.
Family's used to stay together, so I'm told.
There were still things left to discover, so I'm told.
Men kept their word, women were more respectable, there were still things left to fight for.
As if we have left nothing to worry about anymore.

We have new age problems that started with your first engine.
Your first lightbulb.
Your first sweatshop.
Your first cellphone.

We are left fighting for balance between an undeniable human nature and nature itself, dwindling.

This isn't the age of sin, it's the age of freedom,

Where you feel the need to point out that too much of a good thing can single handedly destroy the world. You should know.

And we are not taking things easy, We are not lying down easy,
We are working.
Things are different now but we are working.
Trying to tell ourselves: Its not our fault
Danger, is just a household game for children.

Normal is no longer a house hold name.
Everything is so ******* up these days.

But we are working

to think everything through before we go ahead and do whatever might be a temporary fix to the mess that was made.

A mess you created, and no I'm not ungrateful 'cause you only ever did what you thought was best for us, to make life easier for us. You worked hard and lived hard and everything was hard, at least that's what you tell me. And God, I hope it's true.
Because that's the only way I can wrap my brain around the thought forgiving you.

I don't believe you never saw this coming. Unless,
Were you simply working too hard for a brighter future, a world for your children and their children and their children to live life easier to stop and wonder what might happen if?

This is not the dying world I would want to bring a baby into.
I wouldn't want my child's life to be that kind of condemning easy, lazy
I'd want it to be simple and stress free.
But never easy.

Tori Jurdanus Feb 2013

Algenia

He called me princess. I don't think much of it, let it slip my mind from time to time.
I'm fine with it.
Until today, when I watched a woman tell a little girl she wasn't one.
Talking about how her daddy shouldn't call her what she's not and her mama shouldn't be filling her head with words like, "You can be anything you want to."
Like, its not true and if you don't tell her now she'll never outgrow the idea of being
A princess.

And though Heaven forbid we dreams big,
I, was definitely a princess.
Princess Aleisia of the Beauties, a forest is my own back yard,
my castle was a tree I literally believed gnomes lived beneath: Alglenia.
An orphaned warrior; I was half gypsy, half native, half Neopian Light Faerie,
And though I clearly was not a princess who did math, I protected my subjects from monsters and evil that was constantly trying to overthrow good.
I could wield a Morning Star better than any boy on the block.
I had inner battles with myself, for I had the blood and horns of a dragon and it was always a challenge to be both Athena's apprentice and an aspiring sage because I thrived in the dark.
I was part demon like Inuyasha,
I was Sango,
I was Mononoke,
I was Mulan,
I was Pocahontas,
I was Bell AND the Beast,
I was Susan and Lucy,
I was Esmerelda, Anastasia

And that's still a big part of me.

Because, if someone had listed all the things I couldn't be while my knees were still to weak for me to stand and speak up for what I believed in, I probably would never have been a poet.
So excuse me for using the word "heroine" with the last ounce of innocence the world has yet to offer a little girl.
Pardon me for trying to learn to infuse grace and charm with strength and loyalty.
Now, imagine with me.
The places I used to play left in ruin. My castles disintegrating. The echo of my battle cries through the forests and fields and mountains have long since faded because the heir to my throne never took her place.

Deny her the right to grow out of her child hood?
Deny me the right to write?
This was never a career choice of mine,
This will always be a way of life.

Tori Jurdanus Feb 2013

The Poem that Doesn't Exist

If I were to write a poem for you,
I would start off by telling you I'm sorry.
I would vaguely hint towards the things I know I must have done wrong,
I would try to take back the reasons I told you to leave,
I would love you.

Next, I'd use a metaphor to explain how you were my support beam and I was a flowering cactus.
Explain that the very way you tended to my roots and seduced my thorns was beautiful.
I would romanticize our nights together, rare but so precious.

If I were to were to write a poem for you, as I so often have,
I would do so to let the world know what was coming.
A star, that's light has yet to reach Earth but when it does it will be so bright it will shine for millennia after you're gone.
I would say, "Baby, you are not a flickering flame on a candle burning low. And this world, is not a child with ADD; you will be appreciated for your wonder, even when you have nothing more to give."

I'd also add a sprinkle of humour.
I would laugh at how our story began,
How I hated you before I met you, and the time you thought you might love me (which you still don't know I know).
I'd mention the time our friends went for each others throats, or perhaps the way we felt we could shame other poets, strip them of their title if they wrote for insults and familiar ears.

If I really were to write a poem for you,
I would want the main idea to be based on how you were the reason I write. Not just this poem but all poetry. I'd talk about how sometimes, even now, I can hear the way you dictated a phrase mimicked in my own mouth.
I would claim that we would always have words.

If I were to write a poem to you,
I would say, I forgive you.
But I will never write a poem about you.
I think, I would want too badly for you to hear it.