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 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)
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)
Knives for Tears by Valerie Parente
I had a nightmare
that I had knives
instead of tears
embedded under my eyes
from when someone stabbed me
but I survived.
I woke up
only to realize
it wasn’t a nightmare at all
but a beautiful sign
of my scathing resilience
when they thought I’d cry.
– Valerie Parente (5-10-2024)
Untethered by Valerie Parente
Being free
and being dizzy
are one in the same
and I’ve never felt more untethered
than when I can’t think straight.
Being fluid
all is moving
and I feel the movement in me
not in sync with the rest
but so close, I am almost complete.
Being uninterrupted
I feel gratitude
when I remember I can feel this way
though I admit, I feel frustrated
when I remember this is not okay to say.
I dream
of this freedom
of being untethered again
moving and fluid
from the fluid within.
– Valerie Parente (2-16-2024)
Bewildered by Valerie Parente
How utterly perplexing
that the thing I want more than anything
is the thing I fear more than anything.
All that I try to draw towards me
I push away when it’s before me.
– Valerie Parente (3-3-2024)
Queen of Aversions by Valerie Parente
I have an endless list of aversions
since age 0, almost to my 30s
and it should come as no surprise
that it permeates every area of my life
so here’s my regal attempt
to call out my constant contempt.
The tense muscle, toes curling
intense reflex type of aversion
have to look away
kind of public display
is quite a strong affliction
for someone who claims indifference.
There’s a passion in aversion
a self-preservation so determined
because I don’t fear what’s not special
I fear the things that have potential
so when asked for proof, I’m self-destructive
with only answers in the form of assumptions.
To be one who feels so vehemently
there’s a very distinct possibility
that I falsely identified
the feeling of butterflies
as a sickness to the stomach
because my anxiety was confronted.
Could it really be a coincidence
that the girl with issues so intimate
always just so happens
to never find attraction?
As if I could accurately gage
fingers on the pulse of tangled veins.
Maybe I was just nervous
because on paper it was perfect
and I’m not used to face to face
facing my weakness, facing my strength
and I know I said I didn’t feel any romance
but the truth is, I didn’t give it a fighting chance.
– Valerie Parente (2-21-2024)
Funhouse Reflex Hex by Valerie Parente
I have come up with a perfect spell
to keep my body dysmorphia in check,
a hex that allows me to see my mind as it is flawed
and my perception as how those flaws manifest.
First I look at someone I find beautiful
and all I see is skinny and perfect
then I imagine my face on the same exact body
and suddenly all I see is excess.
It is this brilliant trick
that takes me out of my own head,
it is this foolproof witchcraft
I call my Funhouse Reflex Hex
where I can finally separate my reality
from the mental virus
and I can see the flaws aren’t in my appearance,
they’re in the psychological defects.
– Valerie Parente (1-31-2024)
Don’t Cry for Me by Valerie Parente
My innocence was bid
once I had unwanted thoughts
so don’t you dare patronize me
with a sign of a cross.
You beg for my forgiveness
from the very same God
that gave me my condition
when I didn’t ask to be flawed.
I make my own power
in the way that I respond
that is in my control
and your control of me is lost.
– Valerie Parente (12-22-2023)
Quandary by Valerie Parente
Am I my irrational thoughts
or am I the one that recognizes their insanity?
Could I be innocent
now that I think of it?
– Valerie Parente (12-10-2023)
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