Small Adult
 

It remains up for debate as to whether or not, we’re here for a reason or here just left to rot. Abandonment complex melting in my alchemical pot. Love me whole, need me, don’t leave me, lend me your forget-me-nots. Perennial. Stop – time to observe every petal that dropped and shed a tear, insincerely, as the sentiment wants. I question conscience a lot. Embracing death equates to spending on your burial plot. Except it’s not, unless bereft of knowledge. Stab loose the soil, on divine earth we stood. Is it unusual to toil ‘til fingers turn inward? all those earnings put toward a hole at which we never care to look. Unhappy with happiness; prefer the ‘could’. Oh, will we ever learn? We should. In anticipation a virgin shook. That smell of sex and burning wood lets us neglect the furtive looks filling in for words that would… sour the moment. Celestial bodies collide, we writhe and bow to the motion. Now it’s devotion; beauty flowering, potent, power unspoken. A little life, and a little death found its new home and I ask how are you soaking… up the dribble they churn these days? Feminine. Sacred. Masculine. Ancient. Binary – dated? Black. White. Dark. Light. Death. Life. Wrong. Right. Left. Right. Yes? No. Let’s subvert nature just to break a tradition. Does dichotomy not pervade and predate our existence? If you truly know yourself, what could I say or hold sway to make you think different? More than just egoic shells, see those aspects well beyond this frame and its gristle. Born blessed survivors, not by nature a victim. Maybe you’ll listen. Maybe you won’t. Say I’m at fault if it suits you. Say I’m a dolt. Don’t call me a rapper, poet or spoken word artist: I only aim to be human, and still stray from the target. This whole game is catharsis. I don’t claim to be honest. Spent my whole life silently dying for nurture. Fighting inertia, and habits of defining your worth by what lies in your purse or trying to look behind the eyes which observe you. How do you look at yourself and be more concerned with their view? Where’s truth in that, we’re losing grasp on what matters to a terrifying standard. Can you verify you’re candid if you mechanized your manners, is it man or machine? A very fine lined balance, often the greatest ills are not exercised with malice. Somebody told me they do recognise my talent, but two years later won’t let me set alight the mic for more than five minutes. And I’d accept it, if we didn’t act like we were inclusive. Oh, we surely appreciate your nuance yea, if it’s confluent with what we are doing here. Not once have I shared my soul without asking myself - what the fuck am I doing here? Losing hair to stress. Who can hear me best bruise the air with breath? Too concerned/incensed that my self-expression is superbly dense until the words regret the tongue they spill from, and the lungs that build ‘em. How lost we are, attempt to act ourselves, lament the fact we fell like strangers confounded. These disparate strands we cannot yoke, so we remain such proud things. Decay is surrounding: to stay grounded is a fool’s endeavour. Bask in the moonlit splendour, soak in the sun rise that’ll eventually pass. Watch the wind from my window, caress blades of grass. Heartbeats like undulating oceans, elements crash against eternal rock. See the beauty between verdurous landscapes and city’s venomous fog. From a lover’s palm plucked an alyssum flower, its petals gently drop. A metaphor for trying to find meaning I’ve lost. Are we here for a reason? Will you leave a response?

I think this would sound better if you said 'just to rot' or 'left to rot' instead of 'just left to rot'. It's a syllable thing.

This piece sounds a bit pretentious but that's not to say it's not good.
The rhymes are good and I could see this as a spoken word or it could be rapped.

Good flow

@Alice will love this; not so sure about @Eng or @PancakeBrah; I'd be interested to hear their take.

You seem to be fighting ennui and wondering about purpose; beginning and ending with the question "are we here for a reason"?

This is really poetic and "good", but it's not my cup of tea. I suppose it's better than gunbars and drugs and money.

You employed a lot of questions to your readers. Interesting technique.
I don't know. In what context are you asking about dichotomy?

Maybe I'm just dense but it seems you've said a lot of words without having a clear point.

I like this question. I like the wording.

I don't know man; I'd definitely like to see some more of your work, so post another one soon.

First, there is a mountain. Then there is no mountain. Then there is.

thought parts of it were beautiful really.

i have only one piece of immediate critique and its minor in scope, but major in effect. if you find yourself using words like "just" or other fillers a lot, re-read and reassess. there's very likely a word to replace it that works to flesh your statement out far more. that or you find you can omit the word altogether and re-work from there.

its.. a sense of succinct brevity. thats what i'm looking for in just about anything i read. relative brevity that communicates sharply and effectively is the key to the door

it's not altogether evident in the above quoted but i found myself catching some redundancies.. mechanically.. while reading that took away from the ideas a bit.



overall - as a reflection on being a person in an interactive space with other people, and all the weird insecurity and self-talk that comes with that, tremendous.

thanks

Or...'Left out to rot'?

Cool piece though...thought imagery was dope.

Yeah it's above average

Probably the best piece on page one.

Not sure if serious or not tbh.

Thanks to those who looked. Can I get some more love?

Probably serious man...

Yeah I was being sincere bro bro.

tell me why? i wrote this.

part of me wants to polish it if i've been redundant but i probably won't.

Wait what?? Is you fuckin' around or legit?...You wrote shit?

lol. did you like that one Eng?

It remains up for debate as to whether or not, we’re here for a reason or here just left to rot.



Who is this an allusion to? I distinctly remember an Open Mic starting with this.



Abandonment complex melting in my alchemical pot. Love me whole, need me, don’t leave me, lend me your forget-me-nots. Perennial. Stop – time to observe every petal that dropped and shed a tear, insincerely, as the sentiment wants



I spent an afternoon recently reading my Open Mic cypher posts, 2014 to now. This reads like what I what was reaching for back then. The whole forget-me-not tie in is just perfect. The "love me , need me, don't leave me" supplication is so naked and natural. Plus it all up with the punctuated rhyme scheme and you've got a gem.




. I question conscience a lot.



Dope.



Embracing death equates to spending on your burial plot. Except it’s not, unless bereft of knowledge.



Second sentence was wack. Well written with sentiment but a screeching halt. Not a fan.



Stab loose the soil, on divine earth we stood. Is it unusual to toil ‘til fingers turn inward? all those earnings put toward a hole at which we never care to look. Unhappy with happiness; prefer the ‘could’. Oh, will we ever learn? We should.



The first two sentences here are so good. Fingers turn inward says so much, a line I'm jealous of. It's kind of gobbledygook after that but "prefer the 'could'" is well taken and appreciated. Could/should contrast is weak in a lesser writer's hands but you've built enough equity to make it mean something.



In anticipation a virgin shook.


I prefer a comma after anticipation.



That smell of sex and burning wood lets us neglect the furtive looks filling in for words that would… sour the moment.


This is an ellipsis l can get behind. Its not perfect but its good which is light years ahead than what someone like Activate Self would do with it. I like the breaking of a scheme after, it adds punch and gives weight to both the previous and next scheme while also serving the content. Burning wood / furtive looks is so natural and good, and it's just hidden right there.


Celestial bodies collide, we writhe and bow to the motion. Now it’s devotion;


Now its devotion is so good. I like it because I wrote like that. But it's good.



beauty flowering, potent, power unspoken. A little life, and a little death found its new home and I ask how are you soaking… up the dribble they churn these days?


Not as strong. The strong wording and use of punctuation getting repeated for lesser effect here.


Feminine. Sacred. Masculine. Ancient. Binary – dated? Black. White. Dark. Light. Death. Life. Wrong. Right. Left. Right. Yes? No. Let’s subvert nature just to break a tradition. Does dichotomy not pervade and predate our existence?

A bit too didactic at the end. And the first part of this is fine and good but a bit beneath the level of writing set up by the first half.

If you truly know yourself, what could I say or hold sway to make you think different? More than just egoic shells, see those aspects well beyond this frame and its gristle. Born blessed survivors, not by nature a victim. Maybe you’ll listen. Maybe you won’t.


I would have preferred 'maybe you'll listen' without the next sentence, with a comma into

Say I’m at fault if it suits you. Say I’m a dolt.


Yeah that'd be pretty strong. You're getting to smart here.

Don’t call me a rapper, poet or spoken word artist: I only aim to be human, and still stray from the target.


My least favorite part of the piece. Calling attention to the act in such a brutish way when everything, for the most part, has been so eloquent. A bit too proud.

This whole game is catharsis. I don’t claim to be honest. Spent my whole life silently dying for nurture.



First sentence is good, second sentence sucks, third is good.


Fighting inertia, and habits of defining your worth by what lies in your purse or trying to look behind the eyes which observe you. How do you look at yourself and be more concerned with their view? Where’s truth in that, we’re losing grasp on what matters to a terrifying standard. Can you verify you’re candid if you mechanized your manners, is it man or machine?


"Can you verify you're candid?" would have been so much better, dropping the rest. I feel like I'm getting more negative as I go on in feeding this. Maybe I'm losing my capacity to just say positive things for a prolonged period? I think all of the writing is good here, but the first half or so set such a good standard and it seems like you dipped into some easier paths as you went on. It's all better than most pieces but the first half was near flawless so it's all a curved scale.

A very fine lined balance, often the greatest ills are not exercised with malice. Somebody told me they do recognise my talent, but two years later won’t let me set alight the mic for more than five minutes. And I’d accept it, if we didn’t act like we were inclusive. Oh, we surely appreciate your nuance yea, if it’s confluent with what we are doing here.


those last two lines are gold.


Not once have I shared my soul without asking myself - what the fuck am I doing here?



Dope.


Losing hair to stress. Who can hear me best bruise the air with breath?


Dope.


Too concerned/incensed that my self-expression is superbly dense until the words regret the tongue they spill from, and the lungs that build ‘em. How lost we are, attempt to act ourselves, lament the fact we fell like strangers confounded.


First part of this half way got there for me.



These disparate strands we cannot yoke, so we remain such proud things.


Dope.



Decay is surrounding: to stay grounded is a fool’s endeavour


Not so good.



. Bask in the moonlit splendour, soak in the sun rise that’ll eventually pass. Watch the wind from my window, caress blades of grass. Heartbeats like undulating oceans, elements crash against eternal rock. See the beauty between verdurous landscapes and city’s venomous fog. From a lover’s palm plucked an alyssum flower, its petals gently drop. A metaphor for trying to find meaning I’ve lost. Are we here for a reason? Will you leave a response?

All of this is gold.


You have such strong phrasing and command of language, and you know it. So you add these supposedly grand statements of intent and opinionated fact. Just drop all of those and write it instead. On a whole I probably said this was the best piece on the first page because it was a top level piece by someone I thought was just a random writer. But when it's good it's absolutely at the top tier. The hiccups were there, with my preferences in mind, but I prefer something like this where the highs are something I would aspire to write, than some even keeled okay piece of writing.

yes. sorry for confusing you.

no. but i liked the bit where you asked me for my thoughts.

@PancakeBrah very much appreciate the committed feedback man. thanks.

@PancakeBrah

Deads feed of

its.. a sense of succinct brevity. thats what i'm looking for in just about anything i read. relative brevity that communicates sharply and effectively is the key to the door

made me smile.

also...even the title of this piece is a dichtomomy, so does that answer your question lol? Solid drop sir.

This was clever throughout. Some really stellar parts, clarifying the difference between webbing thoughts and solidified parts of life that we never question. Again, the rhyming was stellar, but sometimes I think it stiffened what you actually wanted to say, and if you did say it, it was a metamorphosis of what you ACTUALLY wanted to convey. And by actually, I mean, our thoughts arent as complicated as we think they are. We think simply, but we convey our thoughts with words. You feel an emotion, and you think about it, this is how you see this emotion and how it affects you, and how it makes you feel.

The end.

I dislike how they ask me questions. End.

how we describe how we dislike those asked questions are a different story. We compare it to things, and that's how the writing comes about.

abandonment complex, the whole perennial thing. was very very powerful, man. I have to say, reading it and going over it, it's very tough to process. Not because of the intri***y, but because of its prevalence. I liked this, because its a stream of thoughts that make sense, you know?


It touches on a pocket of time, and sets the tone for the next few lines. Alot of lines hurt. The burial plot was very tough to read too. I almost didnt want to keep reading. Understanding where a writer is coming from is probably one of the most satisfying yet, double edged blade type things that you wish you didnt.


Maybe you’ll listen. Maybe you won’t.

love that line. i think, that - this is a real line. maybe you wil.. maybe you wont. hinging on the fact of probability, goes back to the abandonment complex. you don't know. these dreadful ways of thinking affect your relationships, even really good ones that you wish didn't. These ways of thinking are detrimental, and its tough because of what you went through. The connection here, as with various others is tremendous. its fairly easy to talk about something sad for a few paragraphs and then have them 'connect' but this line right here, is exactly what was being looked for, its sad, then its ....happy again, then it questions itself.. then it repeats.. this is that complex exactly. beautiful really.



"Too concerned/incensed that my self-expression is superbly dense until the words regret the tongue they spill from, and the lungs that build ‘em. How lost we are, attempt to act ourselves, lament the fact we fell like strangers confounded. These disparate strands we cannot yoke, so we remain such proud things. Decay is surrounding: to stay grounded is a fool’s endeavour. Bask in the moonlit splendour, soak in the sun rise that’ll eventually pass. "


this is great here too. I love... that you're so honest. Even with the intertwining lying and underlying schemes, this is still honest and great. Attempting to act like yourself, is almost impossible. you can't act like yourself, because you are yourself. That's the most crucial aspect of this whole thing. Sometimes we feel so disconnected, and wish we weren't. We understand that we can connect, but the need to connect isnt there, and its very difficult to connect when you're disconnected. You feel like you should act like yourself, to not be this dead caricature of a former self you wish you werent. So you begin to change - to act like yourself, only to find yourself not even being remotely yourself. and then begins this weird flux within yourself, and it's all repetitive and not healthy. The following lines of bask in moonlit splendour and soak in the sunrise are perfect contrasts... i wrote something recently that touched on that. That I have an hourglass and in the time the sand falls i have the time to be myself, to tell people i love them, to hold hands, to tell people they're beautiful. when that time is finished i fall back into this monotonous boredom that i wish i could snap out of. It's something you need to do for yourself. To separate from the system that begins this vicious cycle. sometimes you dont even know what causes it, it's just something, and you wish you knew.

"See the beauty between verdurous landscapes and city’s venomous fog. From a lover’s palm plucked an alyssum flower, its petals gently drop. A metaphor for trying to find meaning I’ve lost. Are we here for a reason? Will you leave a response?"

i loved this. you touched on the subject again.. weaving back and forth between what was on your mind to begin with, why we're here.. why you're here.. how you observe things, how everything has a cause and affect, dancing, and why you danced, to the feeling you danced, the petals falling, and what that symbolizes, the meaning ..of meaning itself, of yourself. are we here for a reason? will you leave a response? referring to someone, something, a relationship that you... wanted to succeed but... self sabotage got in the way. something you can't help but to feel. something that isn't normal. but you want it to be normal. will someone understand? I recently wrote about a guiding light.. and well, this touches home. sometimes theres people in our lives that become this light that slowly, very slowly breathe life into you. people say to do it yourself, but you sometimes can't do it yourself. this is a very honest piece. sometimes you need motivation from a source that you trust with your entire being, something that understands you.. that doesnt judge you. that doesnt let you go. then you can slowly rebuild yourself into the person you know you can be - is what i took from it. You dont question life and yourself, you just begin to be. And by being you already are yourself. no acting. none of that. just something beautiful. canvass dipped in paint and a beautiful landscape comes about. you notice beautiful things and you take them for what they are, not for what they could become - whether it be good or bad. I like the piece. the whole format and the topic. some qualms with some writing, and wording, and rhyming, but that's whatever. That'll get better in time. My only advice to you, is to keep writing what you feel. and not what you think.

thx alot. appreciated the allusion to me. I saw a few lines here scattered throughout. sometimes i felt as if you took some really old pieces and used them for some sort of inspiration. which also pleases me. Hope you're doing well. peace

I read this no less than 5x. I was going to give it the lengthy breakdown that it deserves, but now I'm not in the head space to. In any case, as cheap as this might seem I hope you're cool with me just saying it was dope. I dug your perspective. Interesting phrasing, etc. I'll be back.

This shit was pretty dope to me...I was working the bar the other day and some kid from england flew in. Turns out he went to oxford. I was like, I write on a site and there's this dude from oxford on it. This piece was nice I knew immediately it had to be an alias cuz the writing was tight. Liked the existential quandary vibe to it. Thanks.