[Vulgar]

oXus - 'Don't sweat the technique' resounded in my head shortly after reading this twice. As is customary for you, you dress the wounds (your personal blueprint on scholarly life) with words I expect you to use like indelible, lexical, tenable, nascent, etc. For one, I liked how you 'rejected' the premise of the topic by explaining why you never knew love on a name to name basis, so why would keeping the secret be compromised by other forces? It wouldn't. Your narrator voice will always be (I fear) the skinnier, more English accented Badr Hari. I'm talking Muqshafari the String Bean type of vocal capacity. I can't help it, this is what the board has done to me (and to you.) You took us through your childhood, told us about your views on schooling and higher education, revealing some of your flaws along the way. Writing was the focal point, which you used to bind together the doubtful frenetics of an unfulfilling youth with the future prospect of making a living as a wordsmith. According to that interpretation, this approach was a little bit expected from you, but I'm glad you actually wrote a full bodied verse. In the past, you've short sighted yourself by attempting "art" which maybe lacked a little in the interpersonal department. I don't think you had that problem here; the reader was given wholesome doses of Ingles.

NYCSPITZ - It's about a homeless man who used to be a father and a lover. His cherished ones die and he hangs out in Central Park making friends with statues that possibly represent the lifeless side of reality: our time will come, but so long as we die with our heads held high, as men, death won't have the last laugh. I'd consider the storyline slightly discombobulated. You had me with the intro, then kept gaining steam and switching to a different perspective. For my own personal preference, I would have stuck with a maximum of 2 and set it off. The language/rhyming was crisp. Just the overall organization left something to be desired. The homeless man is also a surrealist painter? Or an amateur soul sculptor putting the finishing touches on the warbled abyss of his own demise.

businessmen with icy stares can never lessen this cold.
^why would icy stares lessen the cold?

turn and fall...then crawl out a puddle.
^this part was so meh to me.

I'm going to vote for oXus for hitting a home run. It was a good battle.