[Certain]

Adonis: I think the biggest issue for you is the simplicity of your rhymes. You work in internal schemes that help, but you stick with one- and two-syllable rhymes, and then on top of that you force them a bit more than is ideal. (A few examples: "academic dominance" and "purely prolific" were jarring turns of phrase, and I don't know what "The bliss felt cut fear, out like a knife" means.) But my bigger problem was the ending didn't feel deserved. You spent almost half your verse in that first stanza, setting up the characters individually and outside the context of their relationships and stations in life. Those descriptions being fairly generic didn't help. We don't know much about who these people actually are or why they're reacting the way they do. Why is Daniel so upset? In order to validate the ending, we really needed to feel like he had opened his life up and was ready for such a major sacrifice. That never came to fruition, so the emotional draw of that finish fell flat to me. There were things to like here. The story had some potential had it been written more in the minutes. But the structural problems and awkward rhymes and word choices made this verse more jarring than it should have been.

Clutter Buck: The contrast between these verses is intense. You went for a very clean, simple approach. You hit the topic thoroughly with your obvious extended metaphor and had ridiculously deep rhymes that probably were a bit too unrelenting. Your verses sometimes feel like they get predictable at times. But you know what you're doing and stick with it. I thought the concept behind your verse was very original, but the writing lacked punch. You simply were a bit boring. Still, the polish on it was very impressive.

Vote: Clutter Buck