Shadow Sign

Shadow Sign by Valerie Parente

Shadow Sign
you weren’t the light of my life
you were just the shape in which I had been traumatized
I thought you were what I wanted
after all these years of being haunted
because the truth of the matter is
I was never really his
and that unofficial kind of bliss
had me tracing my steps with darkness.

Because Shadow Sign
you were never mine
and with your outline I realize
you weren’t the problem, you were its signal
not something that I was ever meant to rekindle
a simplification of the self
implied light from somewhere else
and that’s the truth to mental health
I looked for love when what I needed was help.

– Valerie Parente (7-21-2021)

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The Witching Hour and the Day She Witnessed

The Witching Hour and the Day She Witnessed by Valerie Parente

I love the brightness of the day,
but when the moon comes to play,
I like hearing the owls speak,
whistling wisdom from their beaks.

I must tell you, I respect the evening,
and the very moon that I believe in,
the dark sky brings retrospect,
to the daylight earlier witnessed.

She who is nocturnal,
owns a world that is eternal,
because there’s never an end,
to what the soul can comprehend.

Well I guess that’s how it goes,
we have experience and then we grow,
encoding it all in the witching hour,
where the spirits accompany what’s ours.

– Valerie Parente (6-5-2021)

The Seven Swords

The Seven Swords by Valerie Parente

He was an elven warrior,
wielding a mighty sword,
an Excalibur that glowed,
in dire times of war.

There were six other swords,
each emanating a vibrant hue,
violet, indigo, green, yellow,
orange, scarlet, and his was blue.

This elf belonged to the clouds,
his people charged the stars,
on a stratosphere of temples,
each lighting up the dark.

Sky-born elves were peaceful,
up until a decade ago,
when archangels from underground,
took the stars as their own.

Ever since that catastrophic heist,
the world was never the same,
all creatures lived in the dark,
using torches to illuminate.

That’s when the seven swords
broke their hibernation,
their glow was the key,
to defeating hell’s nation.

The blue sword resided in a raincloud,
violet was stored on the lilac beach,
indigo hid away in the catacombs,
green perched in the forts of trees,
yellow in the sunlight chapel,
orange in the nymph observatory,
and scarlet in the wicked forest,
that guarded hell from enemies.

All seven swords were retrieved,
by different breeds of man,
elves, witches, trolls, and more,
each ready to take a stand.

Every retrieval was its own tale,
but that is for another day,
today we discuss the battle,
that took place at hell’s gates.

The archangels fought hard,
to keep the world in the dark,
but the seven swords fought harder,
to find the light that was lost.

For seven days and seven nights,
the battleground was on fire,
and sword after sword,
illuminated like a lighter.

The archangels were defeated,
by the myriad of colors,
and every time one deceased,
they exploded like no other.

A rainbow of brilliant rays,
shot up like a beam to the sky,
and each archangel carcass,
became a new kind of starlight.

Ever since that fateful day,
the blue sword became a symbol,
absorbing the light in the sky,
that once belonged to the dismal.

We learn from the seven swords,
that sometimes the darkest minds,
just need a little spark,
to surrender to the bright side.

– Valerie Parente (4-16-2021)

Love Is Immortal

Love Is Immortal by Valerie Parente

"Still Fresh" by Valerie Parente

Love
is when your soul
recognizes another soul
and you’ll know when you feel that love
because the body will seem as inanimate as clay
while the ego is just an arbitrary layer in space
and the light you sense through this reality charade
could ignite an entire universe with a single gaze
Because love
is when two energies combine
and spawn an endless chain of life.

– Valerie Parente (2-7-2020)

 

Lady Luna and the Light Inside

Lady Luna and the Light Inside by Valerie Parente

Lady Luna has so much light confined inside a heart as dark as night.
She loves being near the sun but it hurts to shine
Because the light she feels inside grows bigger and bigger every night
But the heart of night remains the same size.
Lady Luna does not want to waste the limited time
Determined by a stubborn sun as beautiful as the very light she hides.
She does not want to embarrass herself with another try
Like a pessimist tries to embrace the bright side.
Lady Luna tries so hard to meet the sun at night
Longing to split apart and reveal the light inside
And show the waves the blinding spot provides.
But she is too fragile and shy in her lunatic state of mind.

Lady Luna

Until she can find the right time she writes…

“I have so much light for you crammed inside my heart, and it just keeps growing and growing and becomes more painful to hold inside me and only me. I long to give this overflowing light to you but you are so locked shut. I keep reaching out to share these rays with you but you only open tiny fractions at time. And I am getting so physically exhausted by the mental strain of this effort. Believe me, it is always worth giving another try, because you are worth more than anything this universe can comprehend, but all this energy exertion is taking its toll on me. My heart has so much light inside, and I do not think the light can fit much longer without breaking my heart in half.”

– Valerie Parente (8-26-17)

An Inadequate Reflection

An Inadequate Reflection by Valerie Parente

From the very core of her being she illuminated every room she walked in. In her healthiest state, her effervescent energy reflected onto all that she interacted with.
Perplexingly, as she entered a room whose walls were constructed from mirrors, she could not project her inner light onto the conspicuously ideal environment. The only radiation of light transcended from her optical form, emanating onto the boundaries boxing her in. As her being translated to the sleek canvases something equally underwhelming as it was uncanny occurred. The mirrors absorbed her energy. But this energy was not the energy that regularly brightened the moods of those around her. This shallow light was purged off of the metallic surface at the exact same angle from which it entered.
She virtually saw her own image, yet her demeanor seemed like an astral projection inconsistent of her true being. Her thriving frame of mind could not be captured by the hollow frame of mirror without warping the truth along a lateral axis. Her silhouette was inverted and her essential nature was unseen. In this limiting dungeon of a room she looked to the parallel world mounted on the walls and saw not a reflection of herself but a collection of perfectly stable atoms mocking the very imperfections that shaped her existential being. Those atoms fought to mimic a material vision, a vision far less reflective of her inner light than that of her fundamental spirit. And in a strangely empty place where a shining sheet was no more than an inherently dark plane, the optical illusion of a light-bearing presence existed.
At that moment she stopped relying on the mirror for gratification.

– Valerie Parente (10-12-16)