My Perfect Match by Valerie Parente
I always had
a flicker of hope in my heart
and when we met
I felt that spark.
It all makes perfect sense
when I look back
that I was struck
by my perfect match.
Fire always scared me
but not with you, my twin flame,
and if it all burned down
I wouldn’t be afraid,
if it all burned down with you
I’d only notice the glow on your face.
– Valerie Parente (12-13-2025)
Never A Stranger by Valerie Parente
They say when you fall in love
you fall in love with a stranger
but you were never a stranger
I dreamt of you every night
you were never absent
you were just out of sight.
I always felt you
even when the world was pitch black
you were a spark of light
my perfect match
lighting the way
so that we could cross paths.
They say you fall in love with a stranger
but there is nothing strange about it.
I’ve been led here today by the belief
that I’d recognize you in a room so crowded
and I was right to live for this anomaly
because I knew how strange it wasn’t.
– Valerie Parente (7-24-2025)
In Your Orbit by Valerie Parente
In your orbit
I am more than enough
just like a planet
who’s found her sun.
It once seemed aimless
the path I embarked
but it was all predestined
written in the stars.
I would go on untethered
bound to no such rotation
if it weren’t for you
or the gravity of the situation.
In your orbit
I will never stray
I could go around the world forever
with the pull of your weight.
– Valerie Parente (5-19-2025)
The False Promise of the Damsel in Distress
by Valerie Parente
I don’t think enough girls were taught the difference
between being in love and being obsessed,
so many stories of womanhood
were really stories of sickness,
that to attract a man
you have to be a damsel in distress,
that happily ever after was the goal
and your journey before was meaningless.
They taught us that pity
means he endlessly cares
and that negative attention
means love is in the air.
They said there has to be an obstacle
you can only overcome with him there,
that your accomplishments are null
unless a prince witnessed the despair.
So here’s to the girls
who broke their own hearts
taking on the damsel archetype
before adulthood could even start.
We are not ruined beyond repair,
we’re just a little scarred;
may we raise our daughters
as we raise our bars.
– Valerie Parente (3-28-2025)
Hunger by Valerie Parente
I was never any good
at decoding my appetite,
was I really hungry
or was I empty inside?
Not in the pit of my stomach
but my heart and its hole,
looking for an object
for my affection to go.
I strive for permanence
but permanence scares me,
I’m afraid of full
but full is not finality,
there’s a fleeting hunger
that comes and goes,
and I am an example
of the flux and flow.
Ever since I met you
I feel the endless regimen,
the cycle of hunger
is a permanent impermanence,
a satisfaction then a longing
hungry, full, then hungry again,
and you remind me
that this makes me human.
I will always come back
now that I’ve had a taste
I finally understand my appetite
and the way it is paced.
I will always want you again
just not all at once
and I am no longer afraid
of a man’s permanence.
– Valerie Parente (1-19-2025)
The Romance Experiment by Valerie Parente
I hate trying to make my love life seem relevant
with this nonsense in the world known as The Romance Experiment.
It’s when I give someone a chance
before I get the chance to vomit
then I vehemently try to stop it
and don’t give you any options
back and forth with what I’m wanting
because one second I’m terrified of being alone
the next second I’m terrified of being anything but my own.
Yes it sure is fun, my love
trying to get intimate with me
and when I say I want intimacy
I mean intellectually.
– Valerie Parente (9-21-2020)
Features “Self-Inflicted”, “One Dimension”, and “Value”
from Rather Be Haunted on Amazon.com
Love Vs. Obsession (One in the Same) by Valerie Parente
What is the difference between love and obsession?
Because the two are synonymous in a mind like mine.
And I’m really not trying to cross a line
but I can’t control the way feelings reorganize my mind.
Why is obsession only beautiful
when obsession is mutual?
You say I have to apologize when I care in that beautiful way
Everybody else gets to experience love without the shame
Now the girl with OCD starts to love and it’s called insane
But I really can’t help it that love and obsession have always been one in the same.
– Valerie Parente (4-24-2020)
I have officially published my first full length fiction novel, “In Touch”!
You can purchase “In Touch” by Valerie Parente on Amazon.com
Buy “In Touch” by Valerie Parente
“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.”
– Valerie Parente (8-5-2018)
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