An Artist’s Battleground by Valerie Parente
It’s not a battle I should have to fight
but it’s a battle I don’t mind
because I know what its like
to fight for my life
when my own mental strife
destroyed me from the inside
and I was forced to find
a new reason to try
so if someone out of spite
wants to give me a hard time
about the things that kept me alive
then I’m perfectly fine
fighting that fight.
– Valerie Parente (12-7-2020)
Features “Dissonant Demons”, “Self-Sufficient Psyche”,
and “Love Is Immortal”
from Rather Be Haunted on Amazon.com
Features “The Creeper” and “Sage of Tarkus”
from The Artist, The Muse on Amazon.com
Like Fine China Analysis
I wrote this poem, “Like Fine China“, without fully understanding what my subconscious was trying to tell me. After reading it a couple of times I realized the meaning behind the words. Fine China is the symbol for making art (something beautiful) out of sadness. The sadness is a constant cycle that manifests itself like patterns on fine China, royal “blue” (sad) details that I’ve etched upon the surface (my writing). When I have days that I break down, the porcelain breaks down, and I could use the jagged pieces of sadness to hurt myself but instead I choose to use them to build a display out of the broken pieces in the form of a porcelain vase (art from my mental breakdown) and there I show off pretty flowers (rhymes through poetry). The problem that arises from creating art out of sadness, sometimes sadness that a 3rd party might see as “old news”, is that these emotions I’ve recited are as good as dead to the world, hence why the flowers in the fine China vase I’ve built are decaying. The wonder in this, though, is that those decaying flowers offer me, the writer, solace. The cycle of sadness and creativity continues as the decaying flowers become a beautiful floral tea that I turn to for comfort as a grieve the ongoing pain I’m still in. Other people don’t see the benefit of the flowers (writing about perpetual pain), but I do. The entire process from fine china to a floral tea is cathartic, as is the artistic process, and in the end I feel okay and like I can survive my own mental state. Alas, a new day comes, the sadness inevitably returns as I am overwhelmed with reminders from the real world, and the pretty pain goes back to being “too pretty to comprehend” (commentary on not fully understanding what I was writing in the poem itself “Like Fine China”). Thus the entire breaking down of fine china (delving into an artistic outlet) occurs again.
Isn’t it incredible how art can be completely mindless but reveal something so profound in the mind it spawns from?
– Valerie Parente (10-6-2020)
The Universe Inside of You by Valerie Parente
Do not get freaked out
that everything you do
seems to have a common theme.
Be amazed that your subconscious
understands the grand scheme.
Because your mind is the universe’s method
of making itself seen.
– Valerie Parente (9-27-2020)
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 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)
Features “Grandiosity of the Sick”, “Glitter In The Air”, and “she could not master astral projection”
from The Artist, The Muse on Amazon.com
I Don’t Care About “I’m Sorry” by Valerie Parente
Over a decade of deep hurt
frustration that became a part of me
I longed for an explanation to return
but I don’t care about “I’m sorry”.
I realize I’m not going to be cured
by someone else’s apology.
I need to do the inner work
to become the savior I want to be
and I’m flattered by the remorse
but I can’t depend on a back and forth
to remind me of my self-worth
when I can find solace in my own words.
– Valerie Parente (8-20-2020)
Happy 2 year anniversary since I published my realistic fiction novel
about obsessive compulsive disorder, “In Touch“!
In honor of the anniversary I read an excerpt from the novel on my YouTube channel.
Book Summary: “Undergraduate physics student, Jef Sterling, has done enough textbook reading to know that the universe is home to countless mind-blowing discoveries. But Jef never expected one of those discoveries to be the mind of an obsessive compulsive writer sharing the same campus as him. After reading a poem by Lacey Parker about her personal struggle with OCD, Jef’s highly rational brain fixates on uncovering the mysteries held captive in Lacey’s highly irrational brain. Throughout the course of a school year these two students exchange ideas that merge science with art, reality with fantasy, and physical phenomena with mental phenomena. While learning from one another Jef makes it his mission to make sense of Lacey’s nonsensical disorder and all of its incredible ironies; how she lives by the notion of feeling everything emotionally but dreads feeling anything physically, how her mind lives to protect as it gradually wreaks destruction, and most paradoxically how both Lacey’s most rewarding qualities and most detrimental flaws manifest from the same brain. In Touch by Valerie Parente is a realistic fiction novel alive with intellectual discussion, mental strife, heartache, and anecdotal insight into the cognitive confines of obsessive compulsive disorder.”
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