Give Yourself Time… to Cherish the Given Time

June 17, 2022Leave a comment

Give Yourself Time… to Cherish the Given Time by Valerie Parente

Time really does heal the heart,
you can’t see it at the start
but someday those many moments of having them
will outweigh the one moment you lost them.

– Valerie Parente (6-17-2022)

The Carrier

May 20, 2022May 20, 2022Leave a comment

The Carrier by Valerie Parente

You have been given the greatest honor
when your loved one is visible no longer
and now you get to carry them with you
in everything that you do.
It will be challenging some days
but you will always find the strength
because wherever there is hurt
there was love there first.
There will be confusion but it always comes back
to this everlasting fact:
that loved ones remain forever within
so you never have to be alone again.

– Valerie Parente (5-16-2022)

I Still Dream of You

November 13, 2021January 10, 2022Leave a comment

I Still Dream of You by Valerie Parente

I still dream of you
and I never get confused
because at the core of my consciousness
I realize you never really left.
When I see you in my dreams
everything feels like its true quality
and there is never a question
just a reoccurring remembrance
that I might have lost you in this life
but that loss didn’t reconfigure my mind
and within me, you are always present
within me, you rest in heaven.

– Valerie Parente (11-13-2021)

Hummingbird (A Loved One Says Hi)

July 24, 2021Leave a comment

Hummingbird (A Loved One Says Hi) by Valerie Parente

We spoke of her
while tears overflowed
remembering our love
when it had a place to go.

That was when
our pain became borrowed
nature came by
and acknowledged the sorrow.

A sweet hummingbird
tapped on the window twice
that little girl came back
to show us she’s alright.

And even if
that body wasn’t hers
it still sparked
a sweet reminder.

We won’t know the truth
but we do know this
that another being’s life
made us think of her image.

What remains true
is the shape of nature
a circle of incarnations
being made by a maker.

Not in this life
can I ever be sure
that the hummingbird
was really her.

But what I am sure of
is a feeling so profound
that this little bird’s life
is tied to where she is now.

– Valerie Parente (7-24-2021)

Change, So Bittersweet

May 26, 2021June 25, 2021Leave a comment

Change, So Bittersweet by Valerie Parente

I’m surely not the first to call change bittersweet
because this is the goal… for you to reach a dream
and that means one day you will leave
from my space in my little reality
and I truly am happy for you
but this mechanism called time is so cruel
because there’s a linear progression
that incites loss in this dimension
and I know you’ll be okay
in this brand new escapade
but that certainly doesn’t mean
I won’t miss witnessing your journey.

– Valerie Parente (5-26-2021)

The Gift (II)

May 25, 2021June 25, 2021Leave a comment

The Gift (II) by Valerie Parente

The honest to God truth
is that if I didn’t lose
I never would have had the room
to fit something new into.

– Valerie Parente (5-25-2021)

The Guardian Angel Complex

February 9, 2021February 9, 2021Leave a comment

The Guardian Angel Complex by Valerie Parente

When you lose a friendship, it creates a hole,
you notice all the places you used to go,
and a crater in the shape of another soul.
But when you lose the life of a friend,
there is a Guardian Angel Complex,
and you still feel their spirit in your chest.

This is precisely why my worst grief is not from death
but from the loss of a relationship.
I know that in death there is peace,
in death, you are still with me.
But when a relationship meets its demise
it fades with all the good times.

Wipe your tears, there is no need to cry,
at the completion of someone’s life.
In the physical world someone can fade away
but in death they materialize into an emotional state.
Do not make grief the enemy,
grief is the universe’s way of hinting at peace.
When there is loss of life and you feel disbelief
that dissonant feeling is all the proof you need
that the souls that leave with love, live on infinitely.

– Valerie Parente (2-9-2021)

Too Much Loss For One Year

October 17, 2020Leave a comment

Too Much Loss For One Year by Valerie Parente

This has been a really devastating year
with more loss than our brains can comprehend,
some said with goodbyes
some with unfinished sentences.
It’s not that we’re okay with the loss,
it’s that we didn’t have a chance to lament.
It’s not that we’re dwelling in the past,
it’s that there was no proper end.
And it’s not that I’m mad or insensitive,
but there are some goodbyes I simply cannot accept.
Some explanations are not just explanations
but a farewell, my dear friend.
And I guess the collective conscience within all of us
is learning a very hard lesson,
that the world will keep on turning
no matter who’s lost interest.

– Valerie Parente (10-17-2020)

Sitting on Skulls and Bones

October 9, 2020June 24, 2021Leave a comment

Sitting on Skulls and Bones by Valerie Parente

A pile of skulls and bones,
she sits on them like they’re her throne,
resenting the death that rots beneath,
while presenting the depths of her beliefs.
So much destruction from perfectionism and ultimatums,
so in love with what she had, but love’s what made it complicated,
she was suspended in a bittersweet purgatory,
still existing, but never free,
not quite in heaven, not quite in hell,
and you’d be surprised how bad that felt,
so she did what she does best,
she poured her heart out then she left,
convinced there’d be a savior,
but no one came to save her,
now she mourns all the love she once had,
while the things she loved don’t mourn her back,
it’s a truth she has yet to accept,
so she built this throne out of death,
coping by spinning gold,
out of moping that has grown old,
so regal in all of her grief,
turning life lessons into a trophy,
because there’s so much value in every loss,
you don’t fully see it until it’s gone,
now she sits here in grateful defeat,
honoring the things she willingly reaped,
dead and gone but not dead inside,
because this gratitude is still raw and ripe.