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This is (NOT) an elegy

by Gaki



I- Every time I close my eyes, I see yours glow in the color of the highlighter marks on my calendar.

II- The traces of our late night conversations are still apparent on strangers’ morning faces.

III- I believe time heals wounds just to cut them open again.

IV- Peeling the skin you clothed me in left scars on my ugly flesh that now glow in the dark

V- Some nights, I put my earphones on so I wouldn’t have to hear the screeches and screams of the memories hidden beneath my bed.

VI- I take painkillers before I sleep because migraine is a surgeon with shaky hands and a broken stitching needle.

VII- I dug a grave and buried nothing inside, as the dead body of my journals stood by, watching.

VIII- The ink stains on my body fragments cannot be washed away.

IX- My room is not a cemetery… My bed is not a grave.

X- This is not an elegy.

X- This is not to ‘time heals wounds.’

X- This is not to ‘misery brings wisdom.’

X- This is not to ‘the half-filled glass.’

X- This is to drinking the glass...
a cheer for people whose scars and mine are puzzle pieces that fit together and make a cracked wall.

X- This is to swear words we shout as we stare down at the world from the rooftops of rock bottom.

X- This is a distant land that only exists in our sick minds.

X- This is to voices in our heads and melancholic gateways.

X- This is to realities we fake in six nights and days,

X- This is to the blasphemy we mumble as we pray,

X- this to our beating hearts and throbbing minds.

X- This is not a requiem.

X- This is a melody to dance to.

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208 Reviews

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Mon Jan 12, 2015 9:54 pm
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rhiasofia wrote a review...



Hello, Gaki! First off, welcome to YWS! If you have any questions or whatnot, feel free to message me or leave a note on my wall, I can try to help :)

Okay, poetry time. I love lists, so I really like this, but it could use some polishing, so I'll do my best to be of service.

Two: The traces of our late night conversations are still apparent on strangers’ morning faces.

Okay, not so much a suggestion but more a side note: I absolutely love this line and I want to know so much more from it. It's intriguing. I want to see more imagery of how your conversations show through strangers because it's an awesome image. Maybe not add to this poem, because I think you have a nice flow, but if you ever are inspired to write a poem elaborating on that line, I want to be read it.

Five: At nights, I put my earphones on so I wouldn’t hear the screeches and screams of the memories hidden beneath my bed.

Maybe "during the nights" or "through the nights?" I dunno, it just sounds wrong to say "at nights," I think if you want to show that this is oing on for an extended period of nights you should reword it.

I take painkillers before I sleep because migraine is a surgeon with shaky hands and a broken stitching needle.

You could maybe think about capitalizing "migraine" because you refer to it almost as a person, and people sometimes capitalize "Hope," "Faith," "Pain," and etc. as allusions. I think it would work.

Eight: The Ink stains on my body fragments cannot be washed away.

On a completely opposite note, I think maybe don't capitalize "ink" unless you had some specific reasoning.

Okay, now to the tens. I think that maybe you should play with the formating of these to make it like a single stanza. I think this will help build a relationship between them, and could be very visually appealing. Also, with all the lines formatted to say "to" or "not to" and then have a little phrase, I think it would look really cool to have the little adage in italics or quotations. It brings a little more connection between the reader and writer, becasue it indicates it as a thought or actual dialogue.

Okay, that's all I have for you! I really liked this, and I think it's really elegantly written and just lovely, and manages to pack a punch of emotion without being overbearing. If there's anything else I could help you with or if you'd ever like me to review anything specific, don't hesitat to ask, I love helping :). Have a lovely day!




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Mon Jan 12, 2015 8:10 pm
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BiancaLU wrote a review...



Hey there, Gaki!
I wasn't really sure what kind of piece this was. Still not sure. But it does portray some great ideas. I enjoyed reading it.
A few things I especially liked were:
"I believe time heals wounds just to cut them open again."
"I dug a grave and buried nothing inside."
"My bed is not a grave."
and "This is to swear words we shout as we stare down at the world from the rooftops of rock bottom." Great paradox here.

-B




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Mon Jan 12, 2015 6:37 pm
Morrigan wrote a review...



Hello, Gaki! Welcome to YWS! I hope you like it here!

I really enjoyed reading this. Though the meaning was unclear at first, I liked the imagery you used, and the theme came through at the end.

That being said, there are a few things I'd like to suggest for change that would make this even better.

First of all, I thought this was a love poem at first. There is someone else inhabiting the first four lines that disappears later on, and I can't see a reason for them to be there. Perhaps it is a connection to the title, an elegy to someone else who left. However, if the other person is really what this poem is about, along with enduring and living happily through difficult circumstances, the person needs to be incorporated nearer to the conclusion of the poem. If not, I think that the you in the first four lines should be replaced with something or someone else. The narrator could be writing an elegy for themselves. Perhaps that would even be more interesting.

Five: At nights, I put my earphones on so I wouldn’t hear the screeches and screams of the memories hidden beneath my bed.
There are some grammatical issues with this line. Nights should be "night" and "wouldn't" should be "won't". The second one is because you write the entire rest of the poem in present tense, and this should match it.

Six: I take painkillers before I sleep because migraine is a surgeon with shaky hands and a broken stitching needle.
This is my favorite line.

as the dead body of my journals stood by,
Since journals is plural, "body" should be "bodies".

The Ink stains on my body fragments cannot be washed away.
There are two things about this line I'd like to address: you capitalized "ink" (if this was on purpose, disregard that), and it's worded in a way that makes me have to read it again. It's awkward. Try saying "the ink stains on my fragmented body cannot be washed away".

Nine: My room is not a cemetery.

Ten: My bed is not a grave.
These lines are great, but I think they both belong on the ninth line. As in: "Nine: my room is not a cemetery. My bed is not a grave." This gives more weight to the line "this is not an elegy" if it is the first one categorized after ten. The rest of the lines were a crescendo to this admittance, and I think it would be a sweeter climax to allow "this is not an elegy" the first one to ten.

Ten: This is not to time heals wounds.

Ten: This is not to misery brings wisdom.
Because you are mostly using standard punctuation in this piece, I suggest you separate the old adages with a punctuation indicator, such as quotation marks or italics. So it could be "This is not to 'time heals wounds.'" or "This is not to time heals wounds."

Ten: This is to drinking the glass....
You only need three periods for an ellipsis. Besides, I think a comma would be a stronger choice here, if you're going to continue the line on the next line without adding another "Ten:" there.

The last thing I'll suggest is completely optional, and only my opinion. I suggest you make the written out numbers into roman numerals. It would be aesthetically pleasing, and it would lend a bit of a more serious tone to this piece.

Altogether, I really enjoyed this. Just brush up on your grammar a little, and watch out for characters that disappear suddenly and without warning. I hope that this review proves useful to you! Happy poeting!




Gaki says...


Hello, Magpie! Thank you so much, I've only been here for a few hours and it already feels like home. =)

As for the concept of the poem, it is a "not-a-love-poem poem." The disappearance of the "you" from the first four lines is intended, it is to indicate how breaking up tends to transform from being about the "heartbreaker" into being about yourself (the narrator, here).
The first few lines are an introduction, everything that happens next is an aftermath.

The grammatical and technical notes I have noway to reply to but thanking you, I do face a few of those having English not being a native language of mine. Thank you, I will look into them and fix what can be fixed. =)



magpie says...


With the disappearance, since it was intentional, I think perhaps you should make it transition into the middle of the poem a little more smoothly. Mention something about it, rather than just letting it happen suddenly.




You cannot have a positive life and a negative mind.
— Joyce Meyer