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Catherine Rand Jan 2010
Crinkled and knotted,
Your mind pushes far beyond the last
Fluid dimension of thought.
Words and images
****** out, crossed out, and beaten.
Their meaning disentangled
From the syllables they’re bound to.
Stretched,
Pulled,
Prodded,
Poked,
Rolled,
And torn open.
Mile by mile, down a endless road,
Making no explicable progress.
Broken and battered,
Words, attempting equilibrium,
Burn off energy enough to care.
The unthinkable dread of empty canvas
Impedes on the black and white tile
That clangs too loudly
For reason to be heard.
Inspiration becomes an
Agonizing, ever-twisting labyrinth.
The climactic moment drawn out too far,
Centuries too far,
Tortures and torments you,
Tears you to pieces
Until, at last, you
Are indistinguishable from
The pain you’ve offered,
The discomfort you’ve endured,
The itch you’ve tolerated.
And the balance finally restores itself.
Rights you just at the point of ultimate collision,
Lets you steal a breath,
Before the next thought starts to pull.
Catherine Rand May 2010
I’m haunted by the flashes of a life unbeknown. Stalked by the peremptory hold over me, it lurks behind each thought, every fear, all my smiles. It follows me down the path, through my classes, and curls up inside me each night in my bed. Lived and unlived. The experiences transcend upon me stronger than my own, more dangerous. The smell lingers in empty space, forgotten details of a life nearly remembered, all too familiar. A cold white heat, feeding on energy not hers to burn. She leeches onto nostalgia and fantasy, making me sicker and more delirious. She has taken me, and my life is hers. My only respite, and her only gift, is to glance on those trivial elements through a crystal ball, letting me feel my life anew.
Catherine Rand May 2010
I am not the captain of industry.
I am not the girl next door.

I do not dream of going to outer space.
I do not want to help the masses.

I can not rise above all my peers.
I can not charm the pants off of anyone.

I will not break the glass ceiling.
I will not play in the big leagues.

I refuse to do what I should.
I refuse to be whom I admire.

I have no hope for world peace.
I have no ***** of steel.

I get no true joy from hard work.
I get no chances of a lifetime.

I own no true name.
I own no family money.

I feel no rhythm in my feet.
I feel no calling to a higher purpose.

I won’t respect my elders.
I won’t play nice with the other kids.

I am not who I wished to be when I grew up,
But I keep trying because
I am/have/get/own/feel/love me.
Catherine Rand May 2010
We chanced to take the course, and met in photo class
Quickly cognizant of our potential force, we began in photo class.

Soon the laughter beat the silence, and our hugs grew elastic,
Our voices went hoarse, every forty minutes in photo class.

The cluttered darkroom echoed against our knowing eyes,
With blinks we spoke Morse, side by side in photo class.

The crimson bulbs inspired new love outside our negatives,
With no rules to enforce, it was him and her, and me in photo class.

Now black and white are outdated, in film and in love,
Yet the couple once endorsed still gnaws, and I wait, in photo class.
Catherine Rand May 2010
Wide awake, the restless moon
Shone and sang its bright white ring,
Casting shadows long and purple,
On every silent flapping wing,
On each tucked in, dreaming child.
Playing while the whole world sleeps.

Yet, one small child does not sleep
For he gazes up to the white lit ring.
Ghosts and rumors haunt this child
His only reprieve the song of the moon.
He rests safely under its wing,
Living his dreams in shadowed purple.

Sureness mounts ever in the purple
Haze of night, when strangers sleep.
Seemingly year after year, out spout wings,
As he dances, swaggers, in midnight’s ring,
Learning the luring song of the moon,
Creatures run wild, and no sleeping child.

Until one day, he’s no longer a child
And all he lives is the world of purple.
Child to the seductive moon,
He knows not the world of sleep.
Yet on he dances in his endless ring
Flapping forever with his useless wings.

Then, he shouts, these are my wings!
I no longer hide in the dreams of a child!
So he dances his dance, in his last wrung ring.
And preying on his dark world, purple
With quiet, lonely with others’ sleep,
He glides from a lovely capture, His moon.

The song he learned from the moon
As he wakes, still sprites from his silver wing.
Heaviness on him weighs from sleep,
His body shrinks, fragile as a child.
Yet still in this world he craves purple,
And the song in his ears still rings.

Now, as he looks at the moon, its song yet again does ring,
And he wakes from day to purple, and stretches his molting wings,
With the mind of a man and whimsy of a child, he vows the world his for as long as they, and not he, sleep.
Catherine Rand May 2010
Love can hang like icicles
Dripping, growing
With every melting droplet
Of my fear.

Stacked in chaotic patterns
Beaming, golden,
Calling joy to ring aloud
From each child.

Colors mimic melting rays
Warming, spinning
In a captivated dance
To catch your smile.

Love grows like me, like children,
Briskly, obscured,
Until it bumps your head as
One day you stand sure.
Catherine Rand May 2010
Thrown from the ocean,
stones and grit in our teeth,
scraped stomachs,
and sand in our suits,
we will hurl ourselves
into the combative waves once more,
until we, too,
become thoughtless,
fearless water droplets,
identical and indistinguishable
from the rest of the ocean.

— The End —