Authentic by Valerie Parente
I’d rather be authentic
than perfect
and if I look ugly
in the process
at least I know
that I was honest.
– Valerie Parente (9-15-2020)
Authentic
Tag: Poetry
Poetry Reading & Analysis (Lady Luna and the Light Inside ~ Order In Disorder ~ Inquiries) (VIDEO)
Features “Lady Luna and the Light Inside”, “Order In Disorder”,
and “Inquiries”
from The Artist, The Muse on Amazon.com
This Fear Goes So Deep
This Fear Goes So Deep by Valerie Parente
I’ve got people who want to talk
and I know what they really want is touch
they’re just trying to warm me up
and that really pisses me off.
Because I’m offended by attraction
I get defensive when you want a physical reaction.
My brain wasn’t made to pretend it doesn’t notice
when men try to fool me with a thing called romance.
I’m starting to think that my anger with the men in line
is a form of anxiety designed to defend my mind;
Yes this is a fear of intimacy ultimately
but its also a fear of being challenged intellectually
because I often feel deep disgust
by the boys who admit they have a crush
It translates into “I think that you’re stupid”
because romance involves courtship
and courtship assumes I’m desperate
and desperate translates to dumb
and dumb people don’t think, they touch.
I feel like boys are trying to pull one over on me
all control, all of my autonomy, all the things that make me unique
and I know the intention was never to make me feel degraded
but I feel so Goddamm violated
when someone is attracted to something other than my mentality
because my intelligence is the most important part of me.
So how dare you think you’ve fooled me
into being a sexual prop or something weak.
And I’m no fool, I know I’ve only ever been in love with the guys
that I secretly know aren’t really attracted to my type
and I think that my fear is getting worse these days
ever since I broke my own heart using a friend’s name.
I know this phenomena makes no sense;
trust me, I’ve scoured all of the internet
and I can’t find other people that share this mindset
so I’m not really sure where to go next.
– Valerie Parente (9-14-2020)
You Are In Charge
You Are In Charge by Valerie Parente
I’m really sick of the narrative
that’s evolved in our society
that you are forever a victim
and you can never achieve autonomy,
that when other people hurt you
all you can do is be defeated
and blame another being
for the ways you’ve been mistreated.
There’s no room for healing
because there’s no personal responsibility
or accountability
or the ability
to take actions into your own hands
and set yourself free
because the things we teach
is that owning your faults is out of reach
and you can never rise above
because you are just a victim
and the only cure is romantic love.
Screw that toxic overdrawn narrative
that tells you to point fingers and cry.
You’re so scared to lose the battle
that you don’t even try.
And there is nothing attractive
about blaming the world for your mind.
– Valerie Parente (9-13-2020)
Never Alone
Never Alone by Valerie Parente
I pray that you remember
your life in this world
is more than just yours.
When you hurt yourself
you hurt your loved ones too
and I hope you see that as proof
that you are never alone inside of you.
– Valerie Parente (9-11-2020)
My Own Fault
My Own Fault by Valerie Parente
When I was a little girl
I used to cry when a boy would tell me he had a crush on me.
I would become lightheaded and it was hard to breathe
and the only way to feel okay was to be so, so mean,
determined to make the nice boys feel sorry.
In my adult life
it’s been a lot easier to say that nobody is capable of loving me
than to accept the deeply twisted and tangled reality
that I make it near impossible for love to be received
because I am so unbelievably scared of intimacy.
So to the boys who had the nerve to ever be nice:
I apologize.
You didn’t do anything wrong and I wish you well.
You didn’t petrify me, I petrified myself.
– Valerie Parente (9-9-2020)
Past Tense Mentality
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)
Poetry Reading & Analysis (Old Soul ~ I Will Never Be The Same ~ A Poetic Manifesto) (VIDEO)
Features “Old Soul”, “I Will Never Be The Same”, and “A Poetic Manifesto”
from Rather Be Haunted on Amazon.com
Minds change but hers stays the same
Minds change but hers stays the same by Valerie Parente
She makes an effort not to cry every day
and the professionals don’t know what to say
because she’s well aware that sympathy fades
and people lose interest when you’re not okay
but she’s already made it up in her broken brain
that she’s going to mourn until she can replace
all the memories she was risky enough to make.
She knows it’s not a healthy way to operate,
she understands how a psyche builds and breaks
and she can read a mind from a mile away
but that’s what got her in this vulnerable place,
she forgot that other minds can give and take
and she kept giving to what became an empty space
because she was hyper aware of another’s mental state
and that’s why it hurts so much when minds change,
that’s why it hurts her so much, every day.
– Valerie Parente (9-7-2020)
Living Proof
Living Proof by Valerie Parente
Funny how my biggest fear is being alone
but I’ve been doing just that my whole life.
Lovely how we can be so deeply afraid
of what we’ve already proven we can get through.
You are so much stronger
than you give your conscience credit for.
– Valerie Parente (9-3-2020)
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