haunt – valerieparente

Haunted, Not Want It by Valerie Parente

It’s not that I’m not over it,
it’s that I never got closure from it.
It’s not that I want what I almost had,
it’s that I’m haunted by the way it passed.
It’s never my intention to turn around,
I just wanna make the old me proud…

When it’s hard to tell the difference
between what you want
and what continues to haunt
I ask myself, am I the host or the witness
of a truth in my heart
or an obsessive thought?

The answer is always the same:
when I was half this age
I wanted exactly what I have in this day,
this longing is an addiction so dishonest
a state of mind of the haunted
and it can be debunked in this way:
having gratitude for today.

– Valerie Parente (8-19-2022)

Ghostly by Valerie Parente

She was dead 10 months ago,
free to roam on her own,
she could go anywhere… anywhere at all,
except the place that she belonged.

It was a kind of art, being haunted,
and to be the one doing the haunting,
she mastered it ever so well,
translating and transferring her hell.

Nearly a year passed, and the day came,
where she was resurrected from her pain,
it didn’t happen because people believed,
it happened because she finished her grief.

She is still ghostly under the moon,
and that should be a warning to you,
you can never scare her with death threats,
because she already knows what it’s like to be dead.

– Valerie Parente (4-12-2021)