A Mouthful of Crystals by Valerie Parente
Years ago I drew a picture of a girl
with crystals in her mouth
and I couldn’t remember
if they were going in or coming out.
I realized the answer depends
on how I feel now
empty and unfulfilled, begging to fill a hole inside
or full of emotion, like I need to express what’s on my mind.
Funny how the big picture
morphs to mimic your perspective;
the world is only as set in stone
as a crystal is reflective.
– Valerie Parente (6-7-2025)
Incarnate by Valerie Parente
If the soul is something invisible
then why do certain songs make my soul feel seen?
And if my consciousness is divisible
then why do centuries of stories have the same theme?
If I didn’t choose this body
then why do I pick my own brain?
If I didn’t choose this journey
then why did I incarnate?
If true essence is impossible to capture
then why can art mirror my mind?
If there is no such thing as life after
then why does lost love linger behind?
I don’t think anyone really knows
what we’re doing here
but if there was ever a clue
it wouldn’t be in what makes sense, but how we feel.
– Valerie Parente (4-6-2025)
Pull by Valerie Parente
She feels the pull
of light in equal amounts
the full fledged growth
from a garden she’s planting now.
They say it’s a green thumb
but it’s more like a claw on her hand
the one she used to scrape the dirt
then watch the seeds turn to plants.
This is no burial
it’s a call to rise
for a girl to become the woman
like a flower growing towards the light.
That light is her future self
smiling from above
a perfect reflection
of the frown she came from.
This pull she felt since she was young,
it was always in her view
and the only thing that is with you 100% of the time…
make no mistake, it is future you.
– Valerie Parente (3-22-2025)
Alchemy by Valerie Parente
Art
is just alchemy to the 5 senses
transforming the “pain in here”
into something beautiful in the atmosphere.
The Artist
can disturb or it can delight
evoking a feeling from the reeling
of their individual healing.
– Valerie Parente (11-24-2024)
Vandal by Valerie Parente
One man’s vandal
is another man’s artist.
It takes the eyes of a beholder
to determine which is which.
– Valerie Parente (5-4-2024)
Blasphemy by Valerie Parente
If we keep calling different phrases blasphemy, then
we rid the world of artistic masterpieces…
For nothing is more forbidden
than forbidding words
and nothing is more convincing
than scapegoating a curse;
You give the curse word conviction
when you veil it from the world
so don’t you dare claim indifference
to the power of linguistic terms;
With this tongue, I say, good riddance
to the censorship of artistic forms
you no longer need to be hidden
from man’s constraints and curbs.
– Valerie Parente (3-8-2024)
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The Moonchild & The Cynic by Valerie Parente
I love the juxtaposition
anything but indifferent
two ends of the spectrum
living in the same vision.
I love this mission
where I’m more than a witness
part of something bigger,
the moonchild and the cynic.
I love the way you listen
it knows no division
you might not agree
but you still think I’m brilliant.
– Valerie Parente (6-11-2022)
Garden Girl by Valerie Parente
Garden girl
the way she unfurled
took a long time
to fulfill her words.
Garden seeds
dirt on her knees
buried her sadness
with a thumb so green.
Garden rain
it’s just a mind-frame
we could be our gloom
or we could be its grace.
Garden growth
from hell she coped
decided to be resilient
in how she spoke.
There is always a choice
between wreckage and poise
she can’t control the weather
but she could control her voice.
The clouds rolled in
and the garden listened
come rain or tears
it does not know the difference.
– Valerie Parente (7-31-2021)
Moonchild Manifesto by Valerie Parente is a body of work that documents the parallel between two acts: feeling a profound connection and making it your whole mood, and taking a topic and making it your artistic muse. There is a similarity between poetry and the spell we call love. A Moonchild is hyper-sensitive to this similarity and understands how it is equally enchanting as it is taxing. Divided into three moon phases, this poetry and prose collection follows the subconscious trajectory of The Hurt, The Heal, and The Hope.
Valerie Parente’s third poetry and prose collection manifested out of what she does best, mixing psychology, spirituality, and fantasy to make sense of her mental experiences as both a human being with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and a whimsically dark artist.
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