Fever Dream by Valerie Parente
It should not be hard to believe
her manifesto is written in poetry
a declaration of every insight
she finalized with the moonlight.
A quill pen in her hand
from the feather of a phoenix
and her tempo flows and flows
a silver tongue put to a scroll.
That poet’s name, it’s Valerie
a doll manifesting her fever dream
collecting lessons like mannequins
while she learns to love again.
– Valerie Parente (6-5-2021)
The Phoenix by Valerie Parente
My mind has a body,
and it was engulfed in flames,
it could have been thirty seconds,
but the heat went on for days.
I felt every part of my anatomy,
reduce to ash and bones,
but sentience was still there,
that’s when I felt the quality of soul.
Like magma in a crevice,
it pooled and it overflowed,
then something strange happened,
and I felt my suffering erode.
Miraculous bird under the sun,
I was resurrected at dawn,
a phoenix with empathy so big,
there was death, but I’m not gone.
It’s the destruction and decay,
then the unstoppable sunrise,
how the light will always persist,
and I am one with that demise.
That’s how we begin again,
so much better than before,
that’s how we understand our blessings
you die, then you are reborn.
valerieparente 