Heresy by Valerie Parente
Who am I
to declare what is
and isn’t
right?
And who are you
to decide which words are
and are not
taboo?
What is
an intrusive thought
if not
an act of God?
It all means nothing
until you assign it meaning
so wield your power
like it’s the only thing to believe in.
– Valerie Parente (11-18-2023)
Haunted, Not Want It by Valerie Parente
It’s not that I’m not over it,
it’s that I never got closure from it.
It’s not that I want what I almost had,
it’s that I’m haunted by the way it passed.
It’s never my intention to turn around,
I just wanna make the old me proud…
When it’s hard to tell the difference
between what you want
and what continues to haunt
I ask myself, am I the host or the witness
of a truth in my heart
or an obsessive thought?
The answer is always the same:
when I was half this age
I wanted exactly what I have in this day,
this longing is an addiction so dishonest
a state of mind of the haunted
and it can be debunked in this way:
having gratitude for today.
– Valerie Parente (8-19-2022)
The Owl Mind by Valerie Parente
Nocturnal under the moonlight,
with visions of horror,
so many fears when it becomes night,
like a bad dream in color.
Intrusive images play in rotations,
amplified by the dark,
wide-eyed in your fixations,
as you perform your thoughts.
Something about the evening,
the howls elongate and stretch,
so foreboding like a demon,
so much worse when the sun sets.
Vigilant on treetops like a tower,
is it paranoia or being wise?
Everything is scarier after hours,
and yes, that includes my mind.
The owl mind is exhausting,
the owl mind you can’t trust,
but there is no other option,
dark will always follow dusk.
– Valerie Parente (3-31-2021)
Moonlight by Valerie Parente
I used to be haunted,
at the mercy of the night,
but now the night lives in me,
so I manipulate the moonlight.
I used to see ghosts,
trapped in space and time,
but now I see this reality,
without the irrational fright.
I know I obsess in phases,
and that gave me the insight,
that fixations are not fixed,
they’re just a state of mind.
Like water that flows,
as the moon controls the tide,
moods always come and go,
that’s just a part of life.
I am more than my mental state,
I am a body with moonlight inside,
call it energy, call it a soul,
call it proof of a spiritual kind.
– Valerie Parente (2-28-2021)
Features “Lady Luna and the Light Inside”, “Order In Disorder”,
and “Inquiries”
from The Artist, The Muse on Amazon.com
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)
The Very Real Reality by Valerie Parente
I talk openly about my mental health
in the hopes that it helps
the people who have a hard time with words
who need a voice that understands the hurt.
These themes revolve around love and loss
and how it replays in obsessive thoughts.
To some it may not seem pretty
but a light needs to be shined on OCD
instead of just ridiculed and teased
because this is the very real reality.
These are not personal attacks, they’re symptoms of a mental disorder
it’s not commentary on anybody except the sufferer.
I pray you can separate yourself from my mental health journey and find solace in this truth,
that when it comes down to brain chemistry, this has nothing to do with you.
You deserve to lead a life that is happy and free
but please, don’t look for that through me.
– Valerie Parente (8-21-2020)
Love. Heartache. Death.
Rather Be Haunted documents a dark period for the poet. Emotions linger like ghosts. Interpersonal relations cause palpable frustration. Death breaks the heart but in the most beautiful way.
Through chronological poetry and prose you can feel all that haunts the obsessive compulsive writer’s psyche as she tries to understand her hyper-sensitivities through rhymes and clever lines. As frustration builds, so does resilience, making the struggles that define our humanity all the more remarkable. After all, isn’t the struggle to make sense of emotions the grandest mark of being alive? What makes us human hurts; that is the gift of the universe.
Rather Be Haunted is the second volume of poetry & prose by Valerie Parente, featuring Mannequin Art alongside writing pieces. You can now own the collection in Paperback or Kindle!
My Hope by Valerie Parente
I know that I’m going to have obsessions
all I ask is that my obsessions not be in vain
that I’m able to convey these motifs in my brain
in ways that resonate with the people who don’t know what to say.
– Valerie Parente (6-28-2019)
There Might Be More To Me Than The Emotions I Keep by Valerie Parente
My feelings aren’t as complicated as my mind is making them
with this dissonant narration.
I’ve been caught in a loop
about a story I wanted to be true.
You see my brain does this thing where it prioritizes my feelings
over logic and reason.
Making a stable personality
the most dominant part of me.
Meanwhile I have these thoughts, irrational obsessions that haunt.
For years they were caught
associating you with my name
but now my emotions have changed.
Now my ego is anxious, though it’s really quite simplistic.
No matter how much I resist it
I know I’m moving on
whether I like it or not.
The truth is, I think it’s scary that there might be more to me
than the emotions I keep.
If I get over how I felt
then how do I define myself?
But then I think of how happy I can be now that I’ve set myself free
from that same old story.
– Valerie Parente (1-31-2018)
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