Warrior Princess

April 13, 2025April 16, 2025Leave a comment

Warrior Princess by Valerie Parente

Why be a damsel in distress
when you can be a warrior princess?
Be your own champion
instead of just waiting.
Get up and take action
and feel a new kind of passion
that does not heat or cool
on the whim of a man’s mood.

If you’re proud and poised
dictated by your own choice
they say you’re a tramp
because you don’t belong to a man
so screw being appraised
by your last, not first name.
You are entitled when provoked,
swing the sword on your own!

You are not to apologize
to settle or compromise
for the system thrust forth
the moment you were born.
You were always a warrior deep down
that’s why they created a crown
to distract you with a wish
to be a trophy to those you kiss.

It may sound crazy
but in this world it’s an act of bravery
to dare to feel beautiful
without a man’s approval.
You are a warrior princess
exquisite just because you exist
as you, your own being
despite what fairytales were preaching.

– Valerie Parente (4-13-2025)

Get A Grip

April 10, 2025April 12, 2025Leave a comment

Get A Grip by Valerie Parente

They said “Get a grip!”
but I wouldn’t listen
because my favorite place
used to be in my head
but that wasn’t a place
it was a method
of coping with all
that remained unsaid
in the real world
when I felt abandoned
so I taught myself
to daydream instead.

It wasn’t until
that grip loosened
I learned who I was
and felt alive again.
I was able to create
when I’d reflect
and it was actually better
than I could ever imagine.
No more make believe
no more need to pretend
flesh and bone was superior
even if it bled.

You are my totem
my rhyme and reason
the thing that reminds me
that I am human.
You are my awakening
my reality check
the thing that made it all
begin to make sense.

You are now my favorite place
an existence I can understand
and when they say “get a grip”
I will hold onto your hand.

– Valerie Parente (4-10-2025)

The False Promise of the Damsel in Distress

March 28, 2025April 11, 20251 Comment

The False Promise of the Damsel in Distress
by Valerie Parente

I don’t think enough girls were taught the difference
between being in love and being obsessed,
so many stories of womanhood
were really stories of sickness,
that to attract a man
you have to be a damsel in distress,
that happily ever after was the goal
and your journey before was meaningless.

They taught us that pity
means he endlessly cares
and that negative attention
means love is in the air.
They said there has to be an obstacle
you can only overcome with him there,
that your accomplishments are null
unless a prince witnessed the despair.

So here’s to the girls
who broke their own hearts
taking on the damsel archetype
before adulthood could even start.
We are not ruined beyond repair,
we’re just a little scarred;
may we raise our daughters
as we raise our bars.

– Valerie Parente (3-28-2025)

Pull

March 22, 2025March 22, 2025Leave a comment

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)

They Want Your Heart of Gold

March 1, 2025March 1, 20251 Comment

They Want Your Heart of Gold by Valerie Parente

It is not your fault
that you were manipulated again
you trust so easy
and find it hard to comprehend
that someone might use you
to tie up their own loose ends;
just know your greatest crime
was being a good person.

You have a softness through and through
and this quality attracts manipulators to you
because you have something that they don’t
a heart, and it’s made of pure gold.
Gold is one of the easiest elements to mold
to poke and prod and fold
manipulators see you as a commodity to behold
as if your honesty and loyalty could be sold
but did you also know
that gold does not easily corrode?
They can scratch and stretch and pull
but nothing can chip away at your soul.

Darling, you have a heart of gold
and the ones manipulating have a gaping hole.
Guess who is the valuable one
between the two of those?

– Valerie Parente (3-1-2025)

Supernova

February 16, 2025February 22, 2025Leave a comment

Supernova by Valerie Parente

A dying star
is still a star, nevertheless
and when it goes out
a burst of light will be its last breath
leaving behind
shockwaves, so complex
the world cannot help
but feel its effects.
We may call it space
but there is no emptiness
for memories will linger
far past any death.

– Valerie Parente (2-16-2025)

A Mystery

February 8, 2025February 10, 2025Leave a comment

A Mystery by Valerie Parente

When you were young
you wanted to be left alone
for the sole purpose
of attracting a hero.

You didn’t want to be a spouse
you didn’t want to be a camaraderie
you didn’t want to be a parent
you wanted to be a mystery.

You’d sit alone in silence
where smiles were forbidden
because if they understood how you felt
they’d lose all interest.

You were adolescent and vulnerable
and deep in your sins
but would you believe
you were still innocent?

Never call it a conscious choice
when you were tricked to choose
by the shadows in predispositions
trauma of the old and the new.

Despite it all, you wouldn’t call it hell
the pain you endured in the past
hell would have been going through it all
without the support system you had.

You nearly lost it all to the shadows
but you made it out with so much more
manifesting your own enlightenment
you became the hero you longed for.

It is no longer a mystery
how the light shined through
it came through all the cracks
of the hearts that broke for you.

And if you could tell your younger self
one little clue
let it be the resounding phrase
“I forgive you”.

– Valerie Parente (2-8-2025)

Scar Tissue

February 6, 2025February 7, 2025Leave a comment

Scar Tissue by Valerie Parente

You are designed
to heal from the inside out
it can be ugly on the surface
but you should be proud
because these marks take time
and show your defiance to pain
its the art of surviving
so unique to your shape.
You are your own hero
but don’t forget, you are human
and healing takes time
don’t make any sudden movements.
Know when to tend to wounds
and when pain’s at its end
remember, scars don’t bleed
unless you pick at them.

– Valerie Parente (2-6-2025)

Heart In My Throat

January 26, 2025Leave a comment

Heart In My Throat by Valerie Parente

I had a distressing dream
that my heart was in my throat
and the voice inside of me
didn’t know how to flow.

I struggled to tell the elders
I could not survive like this
but they were just happy
that love in me still exists.

All of my love and heartache
at the same level I consume
the two were not the same
but my signals were askew.

A heart in the throat
is a very strange case
I could still feel it all
it just came from the wrong place.

It is not an easy way to live
and I had trouble vocalizing
how I would not survive
but I kept on surviving.

When I awoke, I remembered my youth
and how I thought I’d die instead of grow
but here I am, my adulthood so full of love
each day fulfilled beyond my wildest hopes.

I think it was young me all along
trying to communicate
“Thank you for believing I was wrong”
to the elder in me today.

– Valerie Parente (1-26-2025)