35 lines
a nous
phásis (i.)
my moonlit girl,
when you tried to outshine the sun
with light that was not yours
(for you must know from where the moon gets its light)
i’m sorry you couldn’t explain the beautiful heartache in your chest
that was innocent enough to believe you were simply made this way
your ribs were a cage for a heart made of velvet dreams
its start and end marked by fading fingerprints (none of which were your own.)
something about the way you tried to make yourself breathe that night
made it sound as if your windpipe housed a weeping metronome,
and perhaps it did;
for each inhale was far too rhythmic to be of any comfort to you,
moonlit girl
smêma (ii.)
i’m sorry that when you caught stray lies between your thin fingers
(no doubt because you thought their warmth would amount to something),
you felt the need to swallow them, glittery ribbons and all,
even if they sickened you and made every breath feel like
your lungs were flooded with broken glass
if i could, my moonlit girl,
i would suspend the world in a looking glass for you
but i fear you’d only drop it and let it shatter
long before you settle it in your shaking hands
(and i can’t bear to hear you apologize for every inch of glass you dropped, anyway.)
i hope one day - one day,
you will no longer be mine to hate
mnasthai (iii.)
i want to press my thumb upon your face, moonlit girl
(even if it won’t shush the ghosts rattling from between your lips),
and wipe away the tears that make your mouth taste like raw salt
but you are beyond my reach
i’m not sure i want to reach you
-indeed, i’m not sure i can -
for, like every memory of you i still possess,
you sink beneath the water
and i am left to ponder my own reflection
as i watch you drown
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141,502 Literary Works • 674,739 Reviews
Hey!!! Mph here, reviewing your poem on behalf of Team Bees!!
I will start with the things that were great about this poem, and there are a lot of things! I really like the line
it immediately shows the reader the meaning of the title “moonlight girl” and kind of establishes an interesting metaphor right away.
another great line:
This is such a unique and fresh way to describe this concept and I think it’s super cool!
Wow, as I read this I’m seeing more and more lines I want to shout out here, but I don’t want this review to just be quotations…… I also really like the stanza about lying, again you use such unique imagery to describe a very relatable experience, I love the one after that and how it illustrates another relatable concept and ends with that raw line “you will no longer be mine to hate,” (don’t we all wish we could separate ourself from our past selves, even if it’s futile?) I see that most of these stanzas kind of illustrate another way the speaker resents and pities their younger self.
and what a cool ending! I love a good drowning metaphor (not to mention all the other great imagery sprinkled in here) and this really shows a transition from one iteration of the self to another.
Next is the one thing I could think of to work on. This is more of a grammar issue, but taking a look at this line:
because of the way it’s written it’s kind of unclear what “that” is referring to. it seems to be intended as describing the “you” of this poem, but it’s actually describing the heartache, which wouldn’t necessarily be feeling anything.
Overall, really compelling piece, great work!!
Heyy, Aster here! 🎀✨️
Firssttt,
is such a beautiful line, and
is wonderfully strange and haunting ✨️✨️
Second, I loved how consistently the moon imagery is carried throughout the poem. “Moonlit girl” gives the speaker's address to her this almost tender but distant feeling, which fits the whole piece really well.
Third,
THAT ENDING is probably my favourite part. It feels symbolic without telling the reader exactly what they're supposed to think 💗
Now, onto a few areas for improvement!
First, some of the metaphors are so close together that they occasionally compete with each other. For example, the section with “swallow them, glittery ribbons” followed by “lungs were flooded with broken glass” has two very strong images back-to-back. Giving one of them more space could make it hit harder.
Second, some of the sentences are extremely long, especially in the first and second sections. For example, the sentence beginning “i’m sorry you couldn’t explain…” could perhaps be split into two lines or sentences to give the emotion more breathing room.
Third, I'd maybe reconsider a few of the parenthetical lines. I like them as a stylistic choice, but there are enough of them that they sometimes interrupt the poem's flow. Keeping the strongest ones and trimming a couple could make the structure feel cleaner.
Overall, YOU COOKED THE PIECE! It's haunting, emotionally complicated and packed with some genuinely gorgeous imagery. There's a lot here to unpack, and I especially love how the ending leaves the reader with questions instead of easy answers. Hope to see more from you! 🍀✨️
Hey Jukebox! As someone who has taken a few semesters of Ancient Greek, this poem definitely caught my eye as something I needed to check out!
I do want to say I feel like in this case because many other languages pull from Greek, that if a person is just putting the English transliteration into Google they're going to be led astray... so I feel like actually putting the Greek letters (ie. νοῦς for nous and so on) even if it was next to the Roman letters would be beneficial for translation sake.
You chose some weighty Greek words and especially so for your title, so I was excited to see how that would interplay with the words of the poem itself. I found myself wishing that some of the Greek Words were more explicitly addressed or played with in the poem - I think you do this most effectively in the 3rd section where you very directly talk about memory. The second section I can't quite understand the connection as much to the Greek word you've chosen - the fit doesn't seem to fit as well...
Checking out some other direct lines of your poem....
I wish these two lines dug a little deeper - and told me as the reader specifically what you mean - I'm not sure I know what a "beautiful ache" means? is it beautiful because it's empathetic / naive? Would see if you can elevate the language a touch in these two lines, because I think you're getting at something important and intriguing, but to be honest I'm not sure what.
These four lines are straight up art - gosh they are gorgeously phrased - to me implying a past of something traumatic happening that now causes difficult sleeping, weeping, and breathing - maybe panic.
The progression to revealing the narrator hates their past-self is unexpected, because the language was so tender in the first section, but I like how you kind of delay that until the second section, it makes you go back to the first section to see how that portion may be tinged with both compassion, empathy, and regret?
Oh I love this! Eerie, foreboding, and gentle! Love the combination of that soft image of "shushing" mixed with the ghosts rattling - that brings about a very unique combination of feelings here.
The end is so quiet and broken - I like how the drowning can be seen as a death but also a baptism / freeing new-life of sorts too - water imager is the perfect thing to end on, because it's dark but also cleansing.
Overall I love the depth of this poem which I feel like is hard to articulate exactly what it mean and yet feels direct in some places too - I feel like the poem is about feeling very complicated emotions about a former self and an almost parental love while at the same time wanting to move-on and live-beyond, there's self-compassion but also an inner strength that wants to defeat the old self. Complicated stuff!
I think your most successful sections are the 2nd and 3rd and that the first section could do with a re-visit to make the language a little more specific and vivid as you have some incredibly powerful fireworks lines in the 2nd two.
Very strong piece, you're a terrific poet, and I'm looking forward to reading more in the future! You should be very proud of this piece!
A
I haven't written anything for a while and this inspires me to write again. There are so many beautiful lines here! I love the concept of speaking to a younger version of you, and the endearing "my moonlit girl" feels so compassionate, even though at times in the poem the speaker is somewhat critical of their younger self. There is a balance of compassion and criticism here, I think, that really highlights the complex relationship we can have with ourselves or past versions of ourselves.
I particularly love your imagery: "as if your windpipe housed a weeping metronome", "when you caught stray lies between your thin fingers", "glittery ribbons and all". It's all so visual. In particular, I loved "my moonlit girl, / when you tried to outshine the sun / with light that was not yours". However, I am not sure you need the following line in brackets: "(for you must know from where the moon gets its light)" I wonder if this overexplains slightly and the poem would be tighter without it. Something I struggle with myself is trusting the reader to get my point without me explaining it too much! So I wonder if there are places, particularly in brackets (though I do like the bit about the ghosts between the lips), where things could be tightened up a bit. That would make those gorgeous images pop even more. Thank you for sharing this gorgeous poem.
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The Egg
First impressions
Okay, wow, my first impression was that I was blown away by how beautifully written this poem is. I thought it might be a love poem, or about someone you once loved, as I saw it started with 'a nous' which I think means 'to us' though I could be wrong! I also read it perhaps as an elegy or confession addressed to a fractured or lost self, and the "moonlit girl" could be almost like an alter ego or a former self. The Greek (I think?) titles feel very deliberate and ritualistic, so I read it as closer to a lament in three movements than a single continuous poem.
The Caterpillar Hatches
What hooked you in
What really hooked me in was the opening image:
Moonlit is so beautiful, but it signifies something hidden, and since the moon needs the sun's reflection to shine, the girl could never outshine the sun. The part in parentheses adds to this, since the speaker says the girl must know where the light is from and that it wouldn't be possible, and yet tries anyway. This really nicely sets up a metaphor about borrowed light versus true light. The moon can't help that it reflects, and so neither can the girl. This was just so well written; I knew I was in for a treat.
Growing & Molting
Pacing
The poem has a very patient pacing to it. The lines feel like they are long, heavy breaths that the speaker is taking time to say. This is reflected in lines such as:
Where the idea of suffocation is introduced. The parenthetical asides are also doing a lot of tonal and pacing work throughout. It reads like the speaker interrupting themselves, correcting or softening what they've just said, and it slows down the pace. It's a technique that I have played around with in the past, and I really love it.
Spinning the Chrysalis
Plot/Structure
The three parts give the structure a real sense of movement. The first, phásis, is about appearance and exposure; the middle part, mêma, is about wiping away and cleansing, and the final part, mnasthai, is about remembrance. Even without a proper plot like in a story, the arc resolves itself with a beginning, middle and end, from exposure to attempted rescue to final loss. Ending on the image of water:
Helps the poem feel closed, since the tides are pulled by the moon, it feels like a complete circle.
The Transformation
Weak parts / What could be improved
There honestly is nothing that I thought was weak or could be improved. If I were to be overly critical, then perhaps I would say that a few images are doing similar things close together, but I think it works.
Wings Taking Shape
Strongest part
I think the entire final stanza:
Is the strongest part for me. The shift from the narrator watching her drown to seeing their own reflection is very unsettling, but also beautiful. Acknowledging that they don't want to reach them, that they can't, is the speaker accepting that this relationship is not one that needs to be brought back from the past.
Breaking Free
Ending/Climax
I like the ambiguous nature of the ending, and how it doesn't resolve into forgiveness or closure, which fits a poem about someone made of borrowed light. There is no tidy self separate from her to arrive at by the end.
First Flight
Overall impression
Overall, this is a fantastically beautiful poem, well done! I look forward to reading more of your work
Favorite Nectar
Favorite line/moment
My favourite line has to be: