The Ebony Library by Valerie Parente
Welcome to the Ebony Library
where the words you choose to say
are never reduced to ash,
where the voice you choose to use
spits fire like facts.
We don’t burn books here
nor do we back-track,
we recall how bad it felt
to prevent any more bad.
Here history stays untouched
while the past is the past,
we will remember how much it hurt
and we will never go back.
– Valerie Parente (3-21-2021)
Past Tense Mentality by Valerie Parente
I only experience a small percentage of my current reality
because a huge part of me is stuck in a past tense mentality.
I have a bad habit of seeing the world like its purely history
and every fleeting moment, a potential novel in a library.
It’s a hoarder’s kind of mind, in a sense
one that values past time over presence
and that’s quite the paradox in the big scheme
because everything present becomes memory.
So when you tell me you’re done with your stay
well I was just warming up to yesterday.
– Valerie Parente (9-9-2020)
valerieparente 