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.
They say when you dream you can incorporate outside stimuli and I know that must be true because I see things behind closed eyes.
When I was younger I would dream and dream and dream and now that I’m older I have woken up and everything I ever wanted was here, waiting for me. Every sound, voice, and hope that permeated those dream states Was peaking through the veil waiting for me to wake.
They say dreams really do come true but I understand now, it’s reality infused. Your destiny coincides with your gut, all you have to do is wake up.
“What do damsels attract most?” “Princes!” “No. Predators.”
They glamorized putting ourselves in danger for the thrill of being saved thinking the peril would make us a princess but all it really made us was prey.
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.
They told me to face my demons but my demons have the same face as me so I looked myself in the mirror and said “you don’t scare me” on repeat.
Funny how I possess these demons within myself yet they come out to possess me getting sick was a summoning by accident deciding to heal was a summoning purposefully.
Like a ritual, the darkness resurfaces but you’ll realize, through this hell that you are also your own guardian angel because only you can save yourself.
When it’s all said and done and all you have left are fuzzy memories of someone you might not remember the conversations you had verbatim you might not remember their laugh and their cadence you might not remember what you did on a random Tuesday night you might not remember the reason for a random Wednesday drive as time goes on you might not remember the person in your head but the one thing you will always remember is how much you loved them.
valerieparente 