[oats]

let me do it like this. please note that I'm breaking the verse arbitrarily for where I want to pause and feed.

I chew it and grit my teeth. Spit it out and lift my feet to hit this loud within my cheeks. Emit a cloud. I'm spinning again this week. Upended. Become the villain you need. A slave to depression. Angry, unchained. Obsessive to rage. Aggressive and decaying. The wait is regression.

very angsty, but not in a bad way. The "become the villain you need" is dope, hints at our emotional fragility, that we need adversity to propel us. Slave to depression came off as cliche since it was just there, not expanded upon or followed up really, would have preferred a better way to describe that state. While emotions are packed in here, and you definitely get your atmosphere of bottled up whirlwinds of feelings and frustrations, it was a bit too vague for my likings. Like, "the wait is regression" doesn't have as much punch as I think it could have because I don't have much to attach to that feeling. This is a very internalized segment. It's successful, and no doubt something that most of us can probably relate to on our own terms, but perhaps it was a bit scattered. I get that being all over the place was intentional - the writing was too good to think otherwise - but it does create a polarizing effect, where some people will click with it and others won't so much. I liked it, but can't help but think that it could have been improved with a stronger visual resonance. Any overt narrating would have fucked this up, not suggesting that, but I think these emotions can be more uniquely conveyed through more descriptive imagery. Just my opinion on the matter. This was effective nonetheless, engrossing of a human condition.

Insane and decompressing. Impressions of angst. Confessions, weighing indiscretions each day with the reverend. Athiest, still hoping to make it to heaven. Submission, suppression. Suggestions: Hate is a weapon. Half-empty/Half-full. Totally wasting perception. A coma patient only afraid of reception.

This is where I feel you hit your stride. The image of an atheist hoping he's wrong and that there IS more than the octaves of life and death (shameless reference to my own verse there, sorry) is great, even if not altogether novel. I loved the wasting perception/afraid of reception couplet (if you can call it that in this format). This is what I was talking about earlier, how you convey deeper layers of these emotions visually, comparing us/yourself to a coma patient, recognizing the ridiculousness of trying to adjust your perspective on reality as either positive or negative, when in fact it's just what it is. Strong ties back to the atheism at the reverend here; sure religion makes you feel better, but for fuck's sake I just can't prescribe to it, even though part of me wishes I could. Great writing here.

I comb, I shave. It takes ten seconds. Least that's what I tell myself. It's more like ten minutes so people won't think I have bad hair, but why does that matter? We're making life a disaster hoping for the light to come afterwards. Self-fulfilling prophecies. All unique snowflakes. All crystal in quality. Just to end up in a pick up giddy on molly. Oh, the pity. Why bother with life if you only squander it?

shaved this morning. Anyway, good comment on vanity, had an aloof humor to it. More commentary on religion it seems, how people almost give up on the now in hopes that something better will arrive after we die. Like "fuck the planet, I'm going to live forever so who cares" kind of an attitude. So of course the Revelation type apocalypse actually does happen - not because it was destiny or a course God set out for us, but because we've chosen/allowed it to be. More visual touchstones with the beauty and uniqueness of all of us, contrasting with the useless endeavors of fleeting joy. @Fig re-read this part, there's more to life than drugs. The last line there resonates though, lots of impact and truth packed inside of it.

Matrices of lies. Whatever makes you survive. Take what you like. Hate what you despise. That Satanist vibe that's still awake in your basement with knives.

Those were just OK to me. Seemed like more commentary on religion, but it came off a little uninteresting to me. Not that it was poorly worded or anything, just the sentiment is oft-communicated. Plus, the Satanist vibe awake in your basement doesn't register with me. It sounded good, though, the rhymes were dope. Maybe I'm just dumb :(

That time you saw that face that made you think she's the wife. None of it's real however you look at it. Only real in your mind. Sickness, ill just to feel compliant. Only real when dying. Those passing moments where you gaze off wondering what you should have did. Oxygen mask humming hymns to what could of been. A tear falls onto the pillow, a crow shrieks out your window. The moment is bleak. now you feel cold.

strong return to form, to simulate flashes of your life before death. then death. it's lonely, to realize all of your life - the good, the bad - it doesn't matter anymore. You still die. The oxygen mask line may have been the best of the verse. This is haunting, great section of writing.


Overall: a little uneven, but a dope verse nonetheless. the moments of vulnerability and frustration are scathingly insightful. though there were some hiccups of cliched writing here and there, they were far outweighed by the poignancy and honesty that saturated the verse. Lots in here for being a fairly short verse. Dope shit, Zen