I’m the monster that my monsters are afraid of because they wouldn’t be trying so hard to take me down if they didn’t know what I’m capable of. The truth is they believe in me more than anyone else so when I get paranoid and believe nothing is real I can still believe in one thing, and that’s myself.
The dark entities in your mind want to take you down to where the pain dwells so if they’re gonna make a monster out of you you might as well give them hell.
I told myself not to think bad thoughts but that was an impossible mission because to try to ignore something is to fail at ignoring it, by definition.
The fear of fear, it’s a tricky little pest what you’re afraid of might not be here but you’re still afraid, nonetheless. The fear of fear is a reality and you are its loyal witness don’t try to wish it away don’t even try to resist it can only lose its potency once you accept that it exists.
The Damsel & The Demon is a poetry/fantasy story hybrid (verse novel) meant to be an allegory for the healing process, whether that be healing from addiction, a toxic relationship, a traumatic event, or anything in between. Valerie drew inspiration from her personal struggle with obsessive compulsive disorder and anorexia to create this Allegory for Healing through the lens of the main character, Daphne. For both Daphne and Valerie, fleeting feelings can only exist as fixations, and the rhythmic stanzas of an internal dialogue, playing like poetry, is the conduit between the mentally disordered author and the hexed protagonist of this story. There is so much beauty in healing, but healing is still ever so messy, uncovering darkness where we expected light and vice versa. Determined to create this massive poem with no help from search engines or AI, Valerie made it her mission to come up with every rhyme on her own; turning to the internet for help was forbidden. As a result, The Damsel & The Demon is an authentic fantastical dark fairytale scripture rich with revelations and an aim to help readers everywhere see themselves in the damsel archetype as well as the ailment they struggle to separate from in the demon.
Valerie Parente is a writer and artist from Massachusetts whose bodies of work often explore the theme, “Finding beauty in darkness” and general mental health awareness.
I used to curse my teenage self for wanting to be sick in the head. 30 years old and I finally comprehend that anybody who wants to be sick in the head is already sick in the head.
How many people roam around the world trying not to be triggered because the everyday man in the everyday trance doesn’t understand that the recovery phase isn’t the same as unfazed.
It creeps up on you these triggers in the middle of a good day with a smile on your face but you’re not okay and the others don’t have a clue that there’s a weapon inside of you in the shape of a thought waiting to be set off.
Therein lies the trickiness of mental illness; it’s invisible to everyone else so we never know when we trigger it.
But there’s a beauty in you that should be mentioned; that you don’t go around the world being unaffected.
Your triggers make you human through and through because what is a flawless mind but a lesser version of me and you.
Mermaid Hair & A Little Black Dress by Valerie Parente
Mermaid hair and a little black dress one for my inner child one for her last breath.
Because I wasn’t ready to grow up just yet so when I felt wronged I found poetic justice.
They said “what do you want to be when you grow up?” and I said “a girl with mermaid hair” for all the times as a kid that I was too scared of the fateful hour glass and its ground of sand so I stuck my head in the clouds not all quite there regressing and digressing into my own fairy tale.
They said “dress as the impression you want to give” so I wore a little black dress ’cause black goes with everything and I’m an artist breaking down reality so it all makes sense to little kid me and the woman she respects so that one fateful day the heart in my chest will end its marathon with little to no regrets.
Numb numb numb then like a flood I felt it all grief, guilt, but most of all the feeling of being loved and I could never be mad at the way my loved ones loved me when I was incapable of feeling sorry because they were the ones that cared when I was too scared and they cried cried cried like a flood in dry air.
I feel it all now for all those times that I caused pain and I just want my support system to know the love was never in vain the storm clouds are gone but I am here, I remain and I am more grateful than a flower is to rain.
I have semi-lucid dreams with a blurry kind of vividness I am aware of my surroundings but I am just a witness I cannot actively make decisions prefrontal cortex with a stillness I go on watching, learning yet I am somehow complicit like I can choose my moves but my stance can only pivot through endless possibilities yet my discretion has a limit.
I think being semi-lucid mirrors my awake state when it comes to my obsessions and the anxiety they create because I am like a witness I watch myself fixate and all I can do is bystand hoping others can separate the me that knows it’s crazy with the me that’s crazy anyways.
When the moon crosses the sky and the dreamcatcher chases me alive I am tripping through the semi-lucid rediscovering the fabric of my mind.
valerieparente 