Category: Poetry

An Artist’s Prerogative

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An Artist’s Prerogative by Valerie Parente

If I’m prude
in today’s mood
then that can creep
in my pen’s muse.
But it’s also my prerogative
if I want to be provocative
and I shouldn’t have to explain
just the same.

Call it vanity,
call it obscene,
call it everything you want it to be,
because you say what should be forbidden fruit
based on the very impulses you don’t give in to
and an artist does not need to coincide
with the expressions you try to hide
and I’ll be damned if I start
to censor myself in my art.

Call it explicit,
call it raw,
call it everything I foresaw.
I tried to come up with a million reasons,
an answer to every single grievance
but I realized
in my confines
that I shouldn’t have to justify
how I display what’s on my mind.
It’s my job to evoke a feeling,
that part of you begging for healing,
and if uneasiness comes into play
then those qualms were never meant to stay.
We elicit what we need
to evolve into a higher breed
and artistic expression is that key
making censorship its enemy.

– Valerie Parente (12-27-2020)

It’s Complicated (At Least That’s What I Want You To Think)

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It’s Complicated
(At Least That’s What I Want You To Think)
by Valerie Parente

You resist, you resist
then when they agree
you feel dismissed
because you want what you can’t have
and you can’t let yourself have what you attract.
So close, but never enough
to break your fear of their touch.
Call it prude, call it in control,
but you’re just trapped in a role.
Perpetually tricking your inner voice
into believing isolation is a choice.
Depriving yourself from the ones
that understand where you come from
because what could be more commendable
than being the only one to understand yourself.
It’s a sick little charade
so fitting for your sick little brain,
where the very thing you want most
is the very thing that would destroy your ego.
And it’s funny in the end
because you want people to believe you’re complex
but you’ve already proven through your twisted issues
that something so complicated lives within you.

– Valerie Parente (12-20-2020)

Dirt

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Dirt by Valerie Parente

I strolled back to that field of dirt
where the trauma was at its worst
and suddenly I’m twelve again
and I feel absolutely no different.
So much dirt on my hands
Like I didn’t stand a chance
Because I was way too deep
In the dirt beneath my feet.
And I can see it now
The seeds meant to sprout.
The place where I was supposed to grow a garden
But a bunch of rowdy kids interrupted the harvest.
Throwing dirt at my name
When I was at that critical age.
My mind is twenty-six years old and it hasn’t forgotten
All the times those kids teased me just for talking.
“Do you want to dance with her?” some girl asked,
“Never,” the popular boy laughed.
It’s taken me a decade and a half
To realize I’ve been wearing that past,
Attracted to the trauma of being unwanted
That’s why I fall for men who aren’t options.
And I’m fairly certain there’s a part of me
That’s been trying to understand why I was teased
That’s why I looked for the worst in myself
And fell into an adolescent kind of hell.
Back then I just dismissed and dismissed
Because I knew that kids will be kids.
In a way I was more sensible back then
Because now I feel the need to openly obsess.
That’s why I visited this field of dirt in the first place
I figured it was about time to unearth that pain.
I’m not upset, I’m not mad.
I just wanna know what about me was so bad
That they felt the need to throw that dirt
When I was just a twelve year old girl
Minding my own business in my own garden
Planting a future I almost walked in.

Its not about trying to re-hash old wounds
It’s about trying to get to the root.
Because there’s trauma under this ground
and I think I’m ready to dig it out.
There is so much beauty in retrospect
Because as I look back, the clouds roll in.
Now the rain is coming down
And those seeds are finally ready to sprout.

– Valerie Parente (12-10-2020)

An Artist’s Battleground

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An Artist’s Battleground by Valerie Parente

It’s not a battle I should have to fight
but it’s a battle I don’t mind
because I know what its like
to fight for my life
when my own mental strife
destroyed me from the inside
and I was forced to find
a new reason to try
so if someone out of spite
wants to give me a hard time
about the things that kept me alive
then I’m perfectly fine
fighting that fight.

– Valerie Parente (12-7-2020)

Fishnets

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Fishnets by Valerie Parente

Maybe if I dress as the girl I’ve never been
then I’ll never have to feel this pain again
because these bittersweet songs
have me missing it all
and I’m not one for regrets
but I regret that I left
so I’ll just slip on these fishnets
and continue to pretend
I never took anything for granted.

– Valerie Parente (12-5-2020)

Like My Dolls

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Like My Dolls by Valerie Parente

I just want to be like my dolls
without the judgement from them all,
a mystery in the shape of a female,
representing aesthetic fairytales,
provocative yet innocent,
the way I see myself in my head,
that’s where I belong
in the silhouette of a doll.

As my peers reach milestones
full of romance and growing old
I can’t quite relate
because my timeline isn’t the same
but when I touch plastic and porcelain
I can grow without forcing
through stories propped on the wall
in the silhouette of a doll.

– Valerie Parente (11-29-2020)

The Crystal Tree

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The Crystal Tree by Valerie Parente

There is a plant that sprouts
though not from a seed,
it spawns from a gem.
They call it the crystal tree
and when it’s full grown
sparkling prisms it breeds,
dangling from ebony branches,
a quartz and amethyst variety.

All the boys and the girls
like to go crystal picking,
plucking off shiny rocks,
in return a prophecy is given,
reflecting the constellations
that the stars have written.
Each crystal shows a path
specific to all the children.

One day young Elissa
wandered through destiny’s groves.
Eager for some direction
she plucked a droplet the color of rose
and ever since that day
she thought in poetry and prose
making a living through words
recording her conscience in rows.

Sometimes we find guidance
in the depths of nature
discovering ultimate truths
for man is its mirror.
We can sparkle, we can shine
and nothing is dearer
than the clarity of our instincts
and an intuition that is clearer.

– Valerie Parente (11-25-2020)