Tag: Poetry

Ghostly

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Ghostly by Valerie Parente

She was dead 10 months ago,
free to roam on her own,
she could go anywhere… anywhere at all,
except the place that she belonged.

It was a kind of art, being haunted,
and to be the one doing the haunting,
she mastered it ever so well,
translating and transferring her hell.

Nearly a year passed, and the day came,
where she was resurrected from her pain,
it didn’t happen because people believed,
it happened because she finished her grief.

She is still ghostly under the moon,
and that should be a warning to you,
you can never scare her with death threats,
because she already knows what it’s like to be dead.

– Valerie Parente (4-12-2021)

Make Sense of It

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Make Sense of It by Valerie Parente

I saw my teacher speaking,
I saw the words on the paper,
but I couldn’t make sense of it.
I knew it wasn’t a foreign language,
but it damn near felt like it.

I tried and I tried,
I read the same pages as everyone else,
but when it came to discussing the chapter,
I missed everything they talked about.
Peers scoffing that I didn’t understand what I read,
teachers scolding, thinking I didn’t read at all,
peers moving on to honors without me,
teachers announcing that I was lazy.

This isn’t a pity party,
this is processing a processing issue,
that went on for so long undiagnosed,
and I just want to understand,
why it was so hard to make sense of it.

Now it all makes sense,
why I struggled in the way that I did.
Starving my brain certainly didn’t help,
but it felt like a just punishment for being the “dumb friend”.
Developing obsessions certainly didn’t help,
but it felt damn good to understand something inside out.

They said this was about intelligence,
they said I was just stupid,
but I didn’t feel stupid,
I felt like I was trying to make sense of sound with sight,
like I was reading a language foreign to mine,
like I was going through the motions blind,
like I was faking it all the Goddamn time.

Well I’m a writer now,
I make art your class can talk about,
I excel at university with essays,
I write books, I write articles,
and guess what? I get paid.

This isn’t a bragging session,
this is finding comfort in that it was never about intellect,
and I just want to understand,
why full grown adults who were supposed to help,
couldn’t make sense of it.

– Valerie Parente (4-12-2021)

The Spider Princess (A Fantasy Chronicle)

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The Spider Princess (A Fantasy Chroicle) by Valerie Parente

There once lived a Spider Princess,
deep in the catacombs,
the tombs were her kingdom,
where she reaped what was sewn.

Some say she was enchanted,
some say she was cursed,
finding patterns in everything,
making webs out of words.

She conjures the ancient wisdom,
that belonged to the spiders,
having studied their magic,
and all they’ve inspired.

These webs that she made,
were connected to the dead,
bound by silver cords,
to create spiritual webs.

She sees the interconnection,
all is eternal, all never ends,
like star maps and constellations,
there’s always a common thread.

When loved ones came to grieve,
in the glorious underground shrine,
the Spider Princess bestowed gifts,
tapestries beyond space and time.

Every mother, every father,
every widow in the village,
came to the Spider Princess,
begging to send a message.

Over the years the Princess learned,
more often than you’d expect,
it wasn’t the dead needing to be heard,
it was the ones who were left.

Just the words “I’m okay”,
“All is well, you can rest”,
were enough to relieve the living,
when she wove her silver webs.

It was a heavy duty, for sure,
but the Spider Princess didn’t mind,
she knew how important words were,
for those who are still alive.

– Valerie Parente (4-10-2021)

Closed That Door

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Closed That Door by Valerie Parente

They say I left that door open
but that’s not true.
I closed that door
and locked my heart in the room.

What nobody realized
including me
was that all along
you had the key.

– Valerie Parente (4-10-2021)

Seascape

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Seascape by Valerie Parente

You think the answer is out there,
so it’s time to set sail,
engulfed in the seascape,
and its nautical tales,
hoping for mermaids,
creatures we’ve never seen,
set sail, this sweet ship,
a metaphysical discovery.

You think you’re just a ship,
lost in the ocean,
the truth is you’re the tide,
implicitly in motion,
waves of the mind,
here before your birth,
man did not make you,
nature spawned you first.

You think when you’re shipwrecked,
that it is the very end,
the truth is, you’re set free,
no more need to pretend,
part of the blue mystery,
so much bigger than you,
connected with everything,
the current becomes your truth.

– Valerie Parente (4-7-2021)

The Phoenix

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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.

The Owl Mind

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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)

On The Surface

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On The Surface by Valerie Parente

I would very much
not like to be the person
that only cares
for what’s on the surface.

But this terrain is bumpy
and full of craters
while the whole world
remains my neighbor.

And I’m prone to circles
that go round and round
while I watch a layer
far above the ground.

I don’t want skin deep
I want profound
maybe it’s time to dig up
what’s been underground.

These words in me
they’ve been alive
so I ramble nonsense
to the naked eye.

I don’t know what I mean
until the retrospect
and I trust my subconscious
in all its depths.

There’s so much meaning and purpose and value and pride
and that’s not what you get on the surface of a mind.

– Valerie Parente (3-30-2021)

Horns

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Horns by Valerie Parente

I used to wear a halo,
now I wear horns,
it wasn’t my intention,
until I was scorned,
leaving the garden,
where roses have thorns,
and I didn’t come out,
unscathed from the storm,
when the sky cleared,
I was weathered and worn,
and the horns began to sprout,
from the temples I adorned.

It wasn’t immediate,
it came from hindsight,
for ten months I went,
trying to rationalize,
dissecting where and how,
I could be the bad guy,
then the news broke,
that I was in the right,
but I still wear these horns,
they comfort me at night,
’cause I can be the demon,
instead of a damsel in demise.

The townsfolk are skeptical,
for whom I vouch for,
I understand the fright,
but I’m better than before,
the uncertainty is gone,
I am no longer unsure,
there is no insecurity,
I am no longer unmoored,
if he hurts me again,
it will hurt him a hell of a lot more,
the worst already came for me,
but then I grew these horns.

– Valerie Parente (3-29-2021)

Lovestruck

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Lovestruck by Valerie Parente

Let’s talk about society
and how it lives inside of me.
Every mannerism, every inflection
spreading like a viral infection,
’cause you’ve been part of me
like an antidote to autonomy.
Something so delicate and rare
happens every time I care,
I surrender my own needs
and this narcissist starts to bleed.

Let’s assume caring is a kind of magic
capable of halting all the madness.
Every self-indulgent display
and I start to look away,
’cause I’m blinded by the glow
emanating from your soul.
Something everyone can wear
but I only see it when I care
and that’s the very empathy
that saves me from me.

– Valerie Parente (3-28-2021)