Category: Daydreams

My Heart Thaws

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My Heart Thaws by Valerie Parente

“You know that mysterious feeling when you smell a certain scent and that scent elicits specific memories?”

“Yes…”

“I’m feeling overwhelmed by a sort of time warp… a time warp beseeched by what I can best describe as an ethereal scent. I’m not talking an autumn aroma that invokes nostalgic memories or a specific stench that reminds you of traumatic experiences. I’m not talking a succession of frames streaming like fluid through your memory banks or distinguishable snippets flickering like consecutive flashbacks rolling through a film reel. I’m not talking mechanical reminiscing as a product of some psychological disposition or resurfacing scars brought forth from intensive therapy. I’m not even talking about a scent that hones your mind! I’m talking about the most inexplicable, indescribable, kind of scent that hones your heart… this otherworldly kind of scent that leaves your present perceptions disconnectedly attending to the world but shifts your reactions into intensely reliving the past! I’m talking nine years ago! I’m talking feelings of innocent attraction and distinct anger and vivid hopes and crazy dreams that were all alive and kicking nine Goddamn years ago! Feelings right before the mental breakdowns that broke my mentality and froze my heart! Nine fucking years of letting the cruel and cold mental disorders numb out the feelings in my heart that hurt so bad! And I forgot how much it stung nine years ago before my reality became a shadow tagging behind a haze of obsessive compulsive disorder and eating disorders. But today that haze is clearing! Today the sun is warm and I can feel it shining down and thawing my heart! And my recovering heart is warping back to a time when crushing made me high and love was totally blind! When somebody made a choice that hurt and something better could have worked! And all this heart ache violently tugging at my core is making me realize that maybe, just maybe, I blessedly became mentally ill! I numbed out my feelings as a means of survival, because to become mentally ill was to stunt my emotional development! To stunt the instrument of my emotions was to freeze time on my heart! To put my heart on hold! And maybe icing out the world behind a distorted icy lens was my way of preserving my heart right before it had the chance to break in half! But I am feeling, and I am alive, and I am okay, and I am better than ever. I am feeling it all now.”

doll-heart

– Valerie Parente (9-28-16)

You’ve Made An Author Out Of Me

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You’ve Made An Author Out Of Me by Valerie Parente

She does not read for leisure. She reads to study. To learn. To quench a thirst for knowledge, knowledge that constructs her entire outlook of reality. So when she couldn’t find out anything about him… she was lost.
“I want to know who you are, what you are about, what you have been through. But you are way too hard to read. When I’m with you, you refrain your diction. When I’m not with you, there’s no context. I have to use my own imagination to explain the content of your character. You’re giving my mind way too much freedom to play around and cultivate false memories. This isn’t your story any more, it’s mine. Don’t you see what you have done?”
His disposition tightened and his jaw clenched. He was about to apologize when the sudden euphonious plot-twist of her voice took him by surprise.
“You’ve made an author out of me,” she smiled.
Her eyes were fixed onto his with a firm stillness, but the shimmering of her tears created an illusion of movement. Under the influence of emotion her pupils flickered… as if she were reading from left to right.

she reads to study

– Valerie Parente (6-22-16)

Her Bright Pink Shoes

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Her Bright Pink Shoes by Valerie Parente

He kept his hood on and hands lodged in the cotton confines of his pockets while maintaining a catatonic stare on the young woman’s feet. Her bright pink shoes were glaringly vibrant against the damp asphalt of the parking lot.
Sick and tired of his optical deviation away from her emotive eyes and onto her pointed toes, the impassioned girl crouched to the pavement and forced herself into his vision. “You,” his good friend affirmed, and the boy didn’t look away, “You are constantly shuffling between pain and fear. When you’re depressed, you don’t care about yourself at all. And when you’re anxious, you care so damn much about your own well-being that you worry yourself sick.”
“Why are you telling me this?” he retaliated through clenched teeth, hoping the aggression in his tone would hide his true desperation for an answer.
“Because!” having captured his full attention she leaped up and stood tall at five feet, “At some point you are going to realize that there is more to you than pain and fear,” she declared, “And you know what? That’s going to confuse the crap outta you. Because you’re not gonna know what to do with yourself.”
And in a fraction of a second, her bright pink shoes scurried away and she was gone.
And he… he didn’t know what to do with himself.

her bright pink shoes

– Valerie Parente (6-22-16)

 

The Masterpiece Tragedy of Marionette

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Marionette shines in the spotlight.

“You are a superstar, young lady!”

“I am no more than a puppet attached to the make-believe! These ideal scenarios! These insurmountable expectations! These flashing images of perfection! My imagination pulls the strings!”

“But you are at the center of the stage!”

“I am tied back by the theatre of an overactive imagination!”

With a razor in hand Marionette breaks free and collapses, for she never properly learned how to keep her feet on the ground.

The Masterpiece Tragedy of Marionette

– Valerie Parente (6-7-16)