Rise Above by Valerie Parente
You beat me to the punch
Knocked me upside the head
But I got off the ground once
I can do it again.
– Valerie Parente (11-29-2019)
Tag: Valerie Parente artwork
Tangled
“String Me Along”
Tangled by Valerie Parente
All these tangled thoughts
have one common thread
twisted in a pattern
I’ve memorized in my head.
Stringing me along
with so much time spent
leaving me weak and worn
frayed and torn to shreds.
So much pretty yarn
it tells me where I’ve been
but it’s nobody’s concern
when I tie up the loose ends.
I wonder how long
until someone notices
I’ve been weaving my words
hoping that they’ll be read.
– Valerie Parente (5-31-2019)
Glitter In The Air
“Glittler In The Air” by Valerie Parente
“Run Away” by Valerie Parente
I told a star that I wanted to dedicate a fraction of myself to its bright soul. I preserved my time long before I ever laid eyes on that star. I spent twenty three years cultivating emotions, memories, and wisdom, and waited until it felt right to share these qualities. Then in the rain of my own eyes I was denied. And I guess what I feel now… is lost. I am lost in an immaculate dark forest under the most beautiful canopy of stars. Here I am trying to run away from a sadness surrounded by the sparkling night and I cannot figure out if the glitter in the air is a sign to turn back around, or a guiding light towards new territory.
– Valerie Parente (11-6-2017)
Egomaniac
Egomaniac by Valerie Parente
I’m torn apart by this tragedy.
But in the eyes of a sane person
This has nothing to do with me.
So I feel ashamed and I try to stuff the pain down.
Because the last thing a tragedy needs
Is a selfish person like me.
– Valerie Parente (10-24-17)
Why I Apologize
Why I Apologize by Valerie Parente
I apologize because I am less than perfect.
I apologize because I cannot read your mind.
I apologize to prove I am aware of my presentation.
I apologize to negate anything I do that you might dislike.
I apologize because I cannot be everybody’s inspiration.
I apologize to beat you to the punch.
I apologize to try and predict all you foresaw.
I apologize because I cannot say everything at once.
I apologize before you get the chance to see my flaws.
I apologize to seem perfect.
– Valerie Parente (10-16-2017)
Hindsight of the Falsehood
Hindsight of the Falsehood by Valerie Parente
I thought a lot about things that weren’t true,
and took for granted the innocence of something new.
Some feelings more common than I realized,
sculpted from hormones, wrongly idealized.
Written off as young love gone wrong,
no more than a dramatic falsehood all along.
Turning fleeting feelings into fixations,
a pruning brain learning the process of iterations.
But I am older now and I know the truth,
New wisdom can only enrich my youth.
– Valerie Parente (10-14-2017)
Lady Luna and the Light Inside
Lady Luna and the Light Inside by Valerie Parente
Lady Luna has so much light confined inside a heart as dark as night.
She loves being near the sun but it hurts to shine
Because the light she feels inside grows bigger and bigger every night
But the heart of night remains the same size.
Lady Luna does not want to waste the limited time
Determined by a stubborn sun as beautiful as the very light she hides.
She does not want to embarrass herself with another try
Like a pessimist tries to embrace the bright side.
Lady Luna tries so hard to meet the sun at night
Longing to split apart and reveal the light inside
And show the waves the blinding spot provides.
But she is too fragile and shy in her lunatic state of mind.
Until she can find the right time she writes…
“I have so much light for you crammed inside my heart, and it just keeps growing and growing and becomes more painful to hold inside me and only me. I long to give this overflowing light to you but you are so locked shut. I keep reaching out to share these rays with you but you only open tiny fractions at time. And I am getting so physically exhausted by the mental strain of this effort. Believe me, it is always worth giving another try, because you are worth more than anything this universe can comprehend, but all this energy exertion is taking its toll on me. My heart has so much light inside, and I do not think the light can fit much longer without breaking my heart in half.”
– Valerie Parente (8-26-17)
Essence
Essence by Valerie Parente
Every heuristic that binds me to my super restricted ego goes away when I’m with you.
– Valerie Parente (8-12-17)
The Silver Screen
The Silver Screen by Valerie Parente
My daydreams bloom from whatever prominent emotion I am feeling.
My daydreams seem to subconsciously and intuitively unravel themselves into ideal scenarios.
Like a movie the daydreams play out in a succession of mental frames on a cortical film reel. At best the mental fabrication distributes its duty between the two-track mind and I maintain my presence; above the absolute threshold I am in the audience and below the absolute threshold I am in the director’s chair. The dialogues between imaginary friends on the silver screen happen so instantaneously that the script’s origin teeters on the line between voluntary and involuntary awareness.
My daydreams are finalized by obsessive and repetitive hindsight.
When mentally reviewed these fantastic mental purges reveal subliminal truths. The loose reigns of control over the internal screenplays, regularly referred to as “imagination”, masquerade as intrusive images too appropriate and too satisfying to be resented.
– Valerie Parente (2-18-17)
Echoes
Echoes
“Your thoughts are synonymous with echoes,” he tells her.
The carefully constructed sentences, spontaneous words, even fragmented enunciation playing out in her mental script are no more or less compositions of sound waves bouncing back and forth in the maze of her mind. Echoes, reflecting off of walls that are as jagged as those doodled by this daydreaming girl who has been half-listening in class. But half of her half-listening is because the thoughts playing out in her own mental labyrinth are lingering. It is not so much a matter of volume, but of frequency. Her echoes reverberate long past the initial sound has run its course. They repeat, repeat, repeat. She can hear the echoes going on and on, cycle after cycle, aware of their questionable rationality because nobody outside of the maze walls seem to be able to hear what she hears. Not even him.
In an effort to make sense of the auditory world reflecting and bouncing inside her she measures these echoes in the same way she measures the dissonant, yet not so distant, world around her- first by participating in the world, second by dissecting the emotional content that transpires by said participation.
She sits back and listens.
The echoes conduct her. Using her instrument of a body she carries out the actions in demand. And what happens… what happens is strange. Is that… is that harmony that she hears?
The echoes that first caused so much panic were silenced upon obedience. It seems that resonating with the echoes was key in tuning them out. She makes mental note of this auditory pattern.
But what transpires when a mental note is jotted down in a mentally disordered mind?
“Your thoughts are synonymous with echoes,” he tells her.
And so on, a new echo starts. This illusory harmony was none other than noise in disguise, false harmony, proving that the only way to tune out an echo is to incite a new echo, conquer a current obsession with a new obsession. The cycle goes on. A natural frequency, the frequency she most prefers, is not the default for the unnatural maze of a mind. But she knows that she will learn to be okay with this. Because though he cannot hear her echoes, he is receptive enough to acknowledge that she can. And that is true harmony.
“Serenade” by Valerie Parente
– Valerie Parente (4-23-16)
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