You Are Not Your Bruises by Valerie Parente
Stop identifying
with your bruises,
they’re not permanent
on humans.
It’s a sign of recovery
when the colors form
a reminder that pain
can be endured.
These ruptured blood vessels
they will come and go
they’re only surface level
and will never reach your soul.
– Valerie Parente (1-3-2025)
Taproot by Valerie Parente
Praying
and daydreaming
are one and the same
wanting
and envisioning
share the same face
it starts in the body
then goes out in space
it starts in the soil
then branches away.
I used to think falling to my knees was only for begging
but it’s really for manifesting
because when you’re down on your knees
you’re closer to the ground
closer to the seeds
where it all sprouts out.
– Valerie Parente (12-25-2025)
Bite Me! by Valerie Parente
Tell me to shut up
close my mouth
as you bare your teeth,
you chew me up
then spit me out
as you please,
so tell me why you get so offended
when I say “Bite Me!”
It’s almost as if you’re not offended by the content of my words
but the fact that I had the audacity to dictate what happens to my body first.
– Valerie Parente (12-20-2025)
My Perfect Match by Valerie Parente
I always had
a flicker of hope in my heart
and when we met
I felt that spark.
It all makes perfect sense
when I look back
that I was struck
by my perfect match.
Fire always scared me
but not with you, my twin flame,
and if it all burned down
I wouldn’t be afraid,
if it all burned down with you
I’d only notice the glow on your face.
– Valerie Parente (12-13-2025)
Pepper Spray by Valerie Parente
Men say they’re better at tolerating the pain
so I say, hey! What’s a little pepper spray?
They can handle the weights, but can they handle the word “no”?
While we handle the weight of a man’s world on our bones.
Us women are tearing up because we’re feeling the depth,
these men are tearing up when we wreak self-defense.
I’m not saying it’s a competition, who’s the better sex
but one bleeds to create life, the other bleeds when life ends.
These men’s eyes may burn, they’re eyes may grow wet,
maybe then they’ll understand how it truly feels to be on edge,
running to our cars, gripping pepper spray for dear life
locking our doors, worrying we’ll be the next sacrifice.
– Valerie Parente (12-13-2025)
A Siren’s Threat by Valerie Parente
If I were a siren
I’d kill men too
lure them to the fishnets
they forced me into.
We are more than the sex
to which we have been reduced
may we serenade men to death
for all the times they’ve been cruel
because mother nature’s silhouette
is in the shape of a typhoon
and when they get shipwrecked
they won’t feel our grooves
only the ocean’s depths
under the pull of the moon
and this world would be no less
if anything, improved.
– Valerie Parente (11-29-2025)
Encased by Valerie Parente
I know I said I killed my younger self
but I was lying
I didn’t kill her
I locked her away
so that she would feel safe.
I thought I threw away the key
so I could preserve her whimsy
but I forgot in my haste
that behind a glass case
she could watch the world change
while staying the same age.
My life went on and progressed
with my inner child as my witness
and it took a long time
before I finally realized
I wasn’t trying to prove myself
to society or anyone else.
I’m not trying to impress you
I’m trying to impress 12 year old me
to be her idea of beauty
so that she could see
all those big scary feelings
didn’t kill her dreams
and it was this epiphany
that revealed the key
so I unlocked the case
and I set younger me free
as a way to say “forgive me
I loved you more than anything
may you go with ease
may you go with peace.”
– Valerie Parente (11-23-2025)
Claws by Valerie Parente
With claws I dug myself
a little hole into hell
6 feet underground
so I could never be found
and just as you’d expect
my vision adjusted to the darkness
until I no longer noticed
the depth of the hopelessness.
But one day the earth quaked
maybe it was chance, maybe fate
and for one second I saw too much
a flicker of light from above
I realized my surroundings
and I finally saw it for what it is
a hole inside the earth
a home for the dead and the dirt.
But there was something else in the ground
amongst the bones splayed around
neural pathways spread like roots
reaching down from the grass roof
and without hesitation or fright
I climbed them to the sunlight
with these same claws I buried myself with
I ventured out of the abyss.
– Valerie Parente (11-23-2025)
Wind Chimes by Valerie Parente
Out of thin air
you seem to vanish
but that is only true
on a visual canvas.
You still ring in my ears
even though I can’t see you
like the wind that strikes wind chimes
and the sound is the only proof.
You blow me away
with the little signs you show
I can’t see you per se
but I can see how you affect the surroundings I know.
The wind is real
even though you can’t see it
pain is real
even though you can’t see it
love is real
even though you can’t see it
if heaven is real
it doesn’t matter if you believe it
maybe you’re still by my side
even though I can’t see you with my eyes
an energy coursing through time
like the wind to wind chimes.
– Valerie Parente (11-2-2025)
Moved My Soul (Crooked Halo) by Valerie Parente
You moved my soul
when I was told this soul is immobile
and this body was its only home
but now I feel home
anywhere that you go.
Maybe what I thought was a crooked halo
was really an orbit feeling a new pull
tilted, shifting, going rogue
saw my future out there with you
and told me to follow.
– Valerie Parente (11-11-2025)
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