Tag: Valerie Parente

It’s Complicated (At Least That’s What I Want You To Think)

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It’s Complicated
(At Least That’s What I Want You To Think)
by Valerie Parente

You resist, you resist
then when they agree
you feel dismissed
because you want what you can’t have
and you can’t let yourself have what you attract.
So close, but never enough
to break your fear of their touch.
Call it prude, call it in control,
but you’re just trapped in a role.
Perpetually tricking your inner voice
into believing isolation is a choice.
Depriving yourself from the ones
that understand where you come from
because what could be more commendable
than being the only one to understand yourself.
It’s a sick little charade
so fitting for your sick little brain,
where the very thing you want most
is the very thing that would destroy your ego.
And it’s funny in the end
because you want people to believe you’re complex
but you’ve already proven through your twisted issues
that something so complicated lives within you.

– Valerie Parente (12-20-2020)

An Artist’s Battleground

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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)

The Crystal Tree

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The Crystal Tree by Valerie Parente

There is a plant that sprouts
though not from a seed,
it spawns from a gem.
They call it the crystal tree
and when it’s full grown
sparkling prisms it breeds,
dangling from ebony branches,
a quartz and amethyst variety.

All the boys and the girls
like to go crystal picking,
plucking off shiny rocks,
in return a prophecy is given,
reflecting the constellations
that the stars have written.
Each crystal shows a path
specific to all the children.

One day young Elissa
wandered through destiny’s groves.
Eager for some direction
she plucked a droplet the color of rose
and ever since that day
she thought in poetry and prose
making a living through words
recording her conscience in rows.

Sometimes we find guidance
in the depths of nature
discovering ultimate truths
for man is its mirror.
We can sparkle, we can shine
and nothing is dearer
than the clarity of our instincts
and an intuition that is clearer.

– Valerie Parente (11-25-2020)

Some Kind of Mania

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Some Kind of Mania by Valerie Parente

She didn’t just burn that bridge,
she blew it the fuck up,
tied fireworks to the rails,
then promptly set them off.
Glitter filled the sky,
while the bridge became dust,
but she’s a visual person,
so it was worth the fun,
sparkles decorating the air,
after an explosive run,
and that bridge between castles,
was as good as done.

She let the embers rain down,
proud of the woman she’s become.

– Valerie Parente (11-10-2020)

The Beauty of Darkness (III)

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The Beauty of Darkness (III) by Valerie Parente

I do not feel shame
when I am in pain;
I feel grace.

Pain gives you the opportunity to create
something authentically great
from a negative space
and it shows the utmost grace
when you can find honor
in an unfavorable mental state.

– Valerie Parente (11-6-2020)

The Utmost Importance

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The Utmost Importance by Valerie Parente

All I want
in the big scheme
is for you and me
to be able to speak
about how we feel
freely.
Where ideas are allowed
to differ in a crowd
without shutting each other down
with a buzzword to block the profound
just because one person has self doubt.
Because I might be bitter inside
from personal bad times
but that doesn’t give me the right
to say you cannot vocalize
all of your good times.

The right to speak
is the right to feel
and the right to feel
is the right to be
and if we can’t just be
then there is no point to humanity.

– Valerie Parente (11-4-2020)