Tag: writer

the illness that wants me all to itself

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the illness that wants me all to itself by Valerie Parente

There are voices in my head
that do not belong to me
and when you ask how I feel
I can feel them speak.
There is a pattern in the language
so ripe with irony,
“To be sick is strong,
to be healthy is weak.
The pain finds a cure
when you cut skin deep.
To be sober is trapped,
to be drunk is free.
When you avoid your fears
their power depletes.”
It’s as if by design,
this backwards philosophy,
and I have to share a home
with the voices on repeat.
But I am no lost cause,
I can still find my speech
and maybe that’s why
I can write it so easily.
This illness wants me all to itself
but it will never have entirety
because as long as I have a pen
I can differentiate between
a voice in my head
and the words that compete.

– Valerie Parente (8-20-2022)

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Thunderstorm Ritual

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Thunderstorm Ritual by Valerie Parente

The thunderstorm ritual,
light a candle,
open the windows,
and with every flash,
wait for the clap,
because this life,
its lightening fast,
written in the stars,
there is a crack,
striking a light,
from your past,
it already happened,
but it comes back,
the flicker of a moment,
never loses its impact.

Revel in the storm
like it’s your last.

– Valerie Parente (7-16-2022)


Garden Girl

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Garden Girl by Valerie Parente

Garden girl
the way she unfurled
took a long time
to fulfill her words.

Garden seeds
dirt on her knees
buried her sadness
with a thumb so green.

Garden rain
it’s just a mind-frame
we could be our gloom
or we could be its grace.

Garden growth
from hell she coped
decided to be resilient
in how she spoke.

There is always a choice
between wreckage and poise
she can’t control the weather
but she could control her voice.

The clouds rolled in
and the garden listened
come rain or tears
it does not know the difference.

– Valerie Parente (7-31-2021)

Moonchild Manifesto SUMMARY

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NEW BOOK HERE

Have you been enjoying my poetry? I love to post my work on valerieparente.com to act as a free library for my writing and art. That being said, if you would like a HARD COPY of my latest work (200+ poetry and prose pieces) you can support me by purchasing Moonchild Manifesto: A Poetry & Prose Collection on Amazon.com. (LINK HERE) Coping with the trauma that arises when you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder during a pandemic and heartbreak and also dealing with the leftover trauma from OCD and anorexia growing up are major themes in Moonchild Manifesto. There is a progression throughout the collection that begins with recognizing pain and heartbreak, transforms into reflection and how your mind could ever get to such a traumatized and obsessive point, and graduates into hopefulness through fantastical allegory-poem hybrids and personal poetic affirmations. Along with stomping out mental health stigma this collection has undertones of feminism, free speech activism, spirituality, and commentary on living through a pandemic. This is easily my favorite project thus far and I would love to share it with the world.

If you liked any of the following pieces on my website you will love them in a full collection that follows a trajectory from The Hurt, The Heal, into The Hope. Some fan favorite poems in Moonchild Manifesto are:

  • Let Go
  • Fishnets
  • The Moon & The Third Eye
  • Venus Fly Trap
  • Like My Dolls
  • These Laurels Were Not Meant To Rest
  • The One That Got Away
  • Your Wardrobe
  • Change, So Bittersweet
  • Why?
  • The Picures I Paint
  • You Look Like You’ve Seen A Ghost
  • In The Jungle
  • Pamper Yourself
  • The Spider Princess
  • Wind Up Toy

– Valerie Parente (7-5-2021)

The Phases of My Mental Health (So Far…)

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The Phases of My Mental Health (So Far…) by Valerie Parente

My crown,
on a daydreamed version of myself,
turned to antlers,
on a haunted version of myself,
turned to horns,
on a metaphysical version of myself,
and I,
will never be overwhelmed,
by the phases,
of my mental health.

– Valerie Parente (6-25-2021)

3rd Poetry & Prose Collection Coming Soon
on Amazon.com

Cosmic Web

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Cosmic Web by Valerie Parente

No illustrations this time,
only words to sway your mind,
I want you to read and absorb,
into your own mental world,
the manifesto alludes my intentions,
tell me how it fits in your dimension,
because my experiences come from me,
but when spoken they fill a collective stream,
in this sense, we are all connected,
a cosmic web that needs no mention,
like a dreamcatcher catching dreams,
we’re all interwoven miraculously,
come, tell me your name,
come, into the infinite space.

– Valerie Parente (6-8-2021)

Fever Dream

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Fever Dream by Valerie Parente

It should not be hard to believe
her manifesto is written in poetry
a declaration of every insight
she finalized with the moonlight.
A quill pen in her hand
from the feather of a phoenix
and her tempo flows and flows
a silver tongue put to a scroll.
That poet’s name, it’s Valerie
a doll manifesting her fever dream
collecting lessons like mannequins
while she learns to love again.

– Valerie Parente (6-5-2021)

Make Sense of It

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Make Sense of It by Valerie Parente

I saw my teacher speaking,
I saw the words on the paper,
but I couldn’t make sense of it.
I knew it wasn’t a foreign language,
but it damn near felt like it.

I tried and I tried,
I read the same pages as everyone else,
but when it came to discussing the chapter,
I missed everything they talked about.
Peers scoffing that I didn’t understand what I read,
teachers scolding, thinking I didn’t read at all,
peers moving on to honors without me,
teachers announcing that I was lazy.

This isn’t a pity party,
this is processing a processing issue,
that went on for so long undiagnosed,
and I just want to understand,
why it was so hard to make sense of it.

Now it all makes sense,
why I struggled in the way that I did.
Starving my brain certainly didn’t help,
but it felt like a just punishment for being the “dumb friend”.
Developing obsessions certainly didn’t help,
but it felt damn good to understand something inside out.

They said this was about intelligence,
they said I was just stupid,
but I didn’t feel stupid,
I felt like I was trying to make sense of sound with sight,
like I was reading a language foreign to mine,
like I was going through the motions blind,
like I was faking it all the Goddamn time.

Well I’m a writer now,
I make art your class can talk about,
I excel at university with essays,
I write books, I write articles,
and guess what? I get paid.

This isn’t a bragging session,
this is finding comfort in that it was never about intellect,
and I just want to understand,
why full grown adults who were supposed to help,
couldn’t make sense of it.

– Valerie Parente (4-12-2021)

These Laurels Were Not Meant To Rest

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These Laurels Were Not Meant To Rest by Valerie Parente

Imagine, imagine, imagine.
When the world is mundane
I give it my passion
another artistic era
to rise from the ashes.

Create, create, create.
People say I should be satisfied
but I need to formulate
an endless stream of words
from this mental landscape.

Another rhyme, another day,
another opportunity for artistic display.
These laurels were not meant to rest,
in this garden I’ll always progress,
so ever-evolving, so evergreen,
like the creativity that lives within me.

– Valerie Parente (2-26-2021)