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 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)
Hunger by Valerie Parente
I was never any good
at decoding my appetite,
was I really hungry
or was I empty inside?
Not in the pit of my stomach
but my heart and its hole,
looking for an object
for my affection to go.
I strive for permanence
but permanence scares me,
I’m afraid of full
but full is not finality,
there’s a fleeting hunger
that comes and goes,
and I am an example
of the flux and flow.
Ever since I met you
I feel the endless regimen,
the cycle of hunger
is a permanent impermanence,
a satisfaction then a longing
hungry, full, then hungry again,
and you remind me
that this makes me human.
I will always come back
now that I’ve had a taste
I finally understand my appetite
and the way it is paced.
I will always want you again
just not all at once
and I am no longer afraid
of a man’s permanence.
– Valerie Parente (1-19-2025)
Immaculate by Valerie Parente
At the beginning God said,
“Let there be light”
but Luna was born
on a pitch black midnight.
So she grew up and lectured God,
“I don’t know who you think you are,
but I see so much cruelty around me;
the world is nothing but dark.”
And God looked at her and laughed,
“Sweet girl, you’ve got it all wrong,
you can see these things around you
because you are that light amongst it all.”
So she made it her mission in life
to spread light into the atmosphere,
and nobody knew where she came from
but they knew she was meant to be here.
– Valerie Parente (6-16-2024)
Sol Purpose by Valerie Parente
What I am
and what I could have been
is what the moon is to the sun
when you compare them.
A fireball of brilliant light
so much potential in action
and I am no more than a rock
whose light is but a fraction.
Though I’ll tell you something about the sun
it hovers alone above the horizon
but when the moon is out
billions of stars join the environment.
To be bright and sole
or to be dim but glistening
one leaves all blind
one reveals purpose in the end.
– Valerie Parente (5-28-2024)
Miniature House by Valerie Parente
I’ve always been a homebody
so I built myself a miniature house
and I figured if I shrunk myself
I’d fit perfectly on a trophy shelf.
Divided into pretty little rooms
turned two floors into my world
made my bed like a good girl does
but didn’t lay in it like I should’ve.
Instead I brought you into that domain
after three years, you wanted out
and like a nail too close to a coffin
I hid the hammer so the blow would soften.
You were so hardened to affection
I wasn’t sure if you even loved me anymore
and when I asked for concrete proof
you gave me concrete from the floor to the roof.
The writing was on the wall
but those walls were caving in
so silly little me played illiterate
to make the collapse illegitimate.
A broken home makes sense in hindsight
’cause I wanted infrastructure in the ground
while you wanted to live on four wheels
… but that was never part of the deal.
Now I’m content in my own space
I can finally breathe a sigh of relief
in this perfect miniature house
that could never fit a spouse.
– Valerie Parente (4-19-2024)
Not Goodbye, Just See You Later by Valerie Parente
While you’re out there
living your new life
just know that your old life
was the best part of mine.
– Valerie Parente (10-21-2023)
grief is the proof that love connects the living to the dead
by Valerie Parente
We live in 3 dimensions
but we die into more.
It feels like loved ones “have been”
but my dear, they still occur.
You have been trained to feel saddened
because you can’t see them anymore
but that’s the living’s misconception,
the dead are still here, in a different form.
We struggled for a definition
so we came up with a new word,
called it “grief”, but it’s really “connection”
to a state beyond this world.
– Valerie Parente (8-4-2023)
Ravenheart:
These Veins Are Not In Vain (A Fantasy Chronicle)
by Valerie Parente
The veins on her hands
like trees with no leaves
black and branching out
along her anatomy.
That ravenheart pumped,
her sanctum of midnight,
filtering the darkness
in the dead of the night.
It only hurts a little
to be made of this blood
she got used to the pain
and the love it’s made of.
She looks to her veins
and knows they’re not in vain
because with these hands
she learned to create.
Since her birth in the thunder
she whispered before her slumber
a promise the shadows bid unto her
these words of ancient scripture,
“Take this black hole
and make it whole
feed that world
no others know.
Use great stress
to create great depth
and with this alchemy
you destroy fear of death.”
– Valerie Parente (6-9-2023)
“Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“… That time heals the pain?”
“Yes, as time goes by you will smile at their memory instead of cry.”
“Is that because you start to forget about them?”
“No. You do not forget- you remember. You remember all those times together instead of that one moment you lost them.”
– Valerie Parente (1-6-2023)
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