Tag: spirit

Kindred Spirits

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Kindred Spirits by Valerie Parente

I’ve said this so many times
how I see figures in the middle of the night
flashing silhouettes with no face
but I see them and I’m never afraid.

I call the flickering ghosts my kindred spirits
something that should be scary but I don’t fear it
we are not unlike each other all that much
we mean no harm but scare the ones who love us.

I see myself in them, as strange as it seems
wanting to be seen, wanting to be believed
for the ways I misread my anxiety signals
a little broken brain with a flicker of wisdom.

Maybe I relate because I’m also like a ghost
bound to this home, and I don’t know how to let go
and every time I try to make myself get up and move
I come back to the same place, this same bedroom.

I believe in the kindred spirits I see
as do they believe in me
maybe they’re trying to say
believe in yourself all the same.

When I finally leave this room
I hope they come with me too
because they remind me there is more
than just material in this world.

– Valerie Parente (10-31-2025)

The Singularity, The Soul

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The Singularity, The Soul by Valerie Parente

When the darkness comes for you
don’t fear being seduced
because the dark loves you, darling
and you are its muse too.

This black hole is enamored by you
a singularity that pulls you in
if it were simply nothing
you wouldn’t feel the attraction.

No, it’s not a void
or in what you lack
it’s a concentration
it’s a black mass.

You feel it in your chest
sucking your energy
past the event horizon
into a bank of memory.

This singularity, they say
compresses all of you infinitely
yet its volume does not exist
well that sounds like a soul, if you ask me.

Don’t you dare compare the black hole to depression
which is ambivalent and unfazed
it contains more emotion than you could imagine
the density of the soul and the darkness are one and the same.

– Valerie Parente (9-14-2025)

Temple

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Temple by Valerie Parente

A place of worship,
they call it a temple
but it is not a building
it is the soul’s vessel.

Like a shrine, you are sacred
embodying something larger than life
a spirit that extends flesh
but this temple gives it sight.

If you knew how irreplaceable you are
you would never lose faith again
that you were meant to be here
despite the where, why, and when.

– Valerie Parente (5-25-2025)

I think God is an artist…

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I think God is an artist… by Valerie Parente

More and more each day
I realize that mental illness is poetic.
So many ironies,
so many metaphors,
I think God is an artist…
I’m afraid of what I already am
and that brought me to my knees,
how the mind is like a nesting doll
mirroring the larger reality.
The more lessons I learn
the more I’m able to recognize
the sense of humor
in God’s artistic mind…
it’s kind of sick,
it’s kind of beautiful,
it’s so poetic,
like my own soul…
and maybe that’s the truth
that your maker is no more than you
that your very identity
is one with the God that sees it through.

– Valerie Parente (5-29-2021)

Love Is Immortal

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Love Is Immortal by Valerie Parente

"Still Fresh" by Valerie Parente

Love
is when your soul
recognizes another soul
and you’ll know when you feel that love
because the body will seem as inanimate as clay
while the ego is just an arbitrary layer in space
and the light you sense through this reality charade
could ignite an entire universe with a single gaze
Because love
is when two energies combine
and spawn an endless chain of life.

– Valerie Parente (2-7-2020)