[oats]

I read all your verses, but rarely leave meaningful feed, if at all, so you're due. In general, and I think I've mentioned this before, there's a subtle shift in your style that I've noticed take place, an arms-length distancing of heavy rhyme patterns, and it's for the better. your touch of language, while always superb, has benefited from that easing of structural integrity, and reading this felt more loose and natural.

anyway.

Blueblood, as a title, evokes the ideas of unexposed blood, as well as reptilian cold-bloodedness, which you touch on with a few images. This is definitely a cascade of coldness, with various examples and life situations that exemplify the confusion and, for lack of a better description, indifference of the world to suffering. There was a lot of pain in here, but it never became sappy or cloying or even preachy - it just described and presented, observed those emotions, which I tend to gravitate to stylistically.

one door closes, others open, they say
but its only a phrase. a notion we employ to persuade
growing antisocial as the calendar waves
but i'm only reminded when i wake up everyday
i recognized my best friend in a box at his wake
who i pushed away until it was already too late
the good die young, but we will live to be great
i'll visit you later if ever i can escape
waiting for a letter from grandfather's estate
wondering if he would've still remembered my name
resting uneasily on a pillow of space
veiling complexes behind a simpler face
i woke up in a bed on 27th and Drake
chain-smoking trying to burn away the taste

I like the undermining of the cliche in the beginning. often those "truths" are euphemistic in nature, and collapse under the weight of difficult life events. The best friend line was emotional ether man, shit. It's a weird anxiety I carry, not so much the idea of dying, or of a loved one dying, but that I will spend those last days before my/their death doing meaningless shit, only to realize it too late. At the same time, it's exhausting to constantly drive towards a larger purpose, personally or interpersonally, especially when driven by an otherwise irrational fear. sidenote: "if ever I can escape" read awkwardly to me, feel like it would be better switching it around to "if I can ever escape."

The grandfather with alzheimers bit was poignant. I feel weird about the idea of being in my grandmother's will, since I've had such a limited relationship with her. and yet, I get paid when she dies. Makes me feel unsettled. I have no idea what those street intersections reference, but it establishes a concrete foundation to the prior abstractions, which balances it out and prevents us from going too far down the rabbit hole.

rest in grace. pocket aces in your denim in case
you're drowning in the river with no oxygen tank
struggling to separate dishonest and fake
put them together it's the whole human race. we all relate
venom laced, fang to bone. blood cold as a viper
self righteous. today's thread titles are yesterday's cyphers
leave the house. keys, cell phone, wallet and lighter
ill be back when i retire. or feel inspired. either suffices

to be honest, I'm struggling to find much in the first quatrain there. seems a bit soft and semantic. that sounds a bit harsh. what I mean is, the oxygen tank bit came out of left-field, and then kinda stood alone, with no elaboration or foundation for it, concrete or otherwise. the dishonest and fake bit had an air of profundity to it, but when I think about it, at least to me, it's hollow. fakeness and dishonesty are interchangeable in my mind. the idea that all humans relate around our flaws, though understood, begs for nuance, but you left it there and moved on. so wasn't a huge fan of those four lines.

the next lines were dope. the thread titles/cyphers part gave me a chuckle, since I'm definitely a part of the small audience such a line will connect with. but the comparisons of being vicious and indifferent, poisonous, is well-received, especially under the context of our shortcomings as a species. the last line is a "true that" as much as it is a "goddamnit." Hits too close to home, and I feel like a scrub because of it.

pressure rises, like nitrous, lion mated with tigress
making mountains out of molecules creating a crisis
halfway nihilist. the other bit's a bit indecisive
it wasn't meant to be like this. her skin was silk, my Godiva
messiah. mousse whipped desire, i was taken at once
but it was only a crutch. accoutrement they serve after lunch
or was it lust? it was love. lamentation and liquor
rather faithful for sinners, we channel demons in winter
sit for Shiva. 7 days accepting death as the truth
so let me loose. our ancestors are next to recoup
let me loose. play your game like nobody loses
i've written for you many moons, O woman in blue
all want is you. your scent the sound of your voice
but i've come to realize it's not a matter of choice

this is familiar territory for you, and I don't mean that in a negative way. the female-driven, smirking self-loathing over an empty liquor bottle in tar-stained dive bars. you have indeed written for Her on many occasions, though She has almost certainly hopped from one person to another throughout your life. It's hard not to relate to those feelings, and you present them in a novel way. The mountains of molecules line encapsulates how I've felt about my romantic neuroses - I tend to waffle back and forth between supreme ALPHA MALE CONFIDENCE CUZ I FUCK A LOT to a hollowness of wtf am I doing, getting in my head and taking minor actions as red flags to abort ASAP. The alpha feeling, if anything, was easy cuz mindless fucking is easy, whereas the second you catch real feelings, it becomes a maze of doubt and second-guessing, and it just overall feels awkward and contrived. and of course, that last couplet sends it home. I love that about your style, the buildup of abstraction and imagery, to be punctuated by the simplest messages and rhymes. The contrast gives a lot of power to that simplicity; it's easy to write simple rhymes with simple meanings and just sound like a simpleton/idiot, but it takes real skillful maneuvering to get mileage out of a phrase that edges on the cliffs of cliche. You walk that tightrope with deli***y and aplomb.

roll your dice. rolls royce, here's a camry at best
my pride's about the only thing i have to invest
sit awake and think about which habit is next
consuming us until there's nothing left..

I don't know how I feel about this ending. It works, but in the easiest way possible, I feel. On the one hand, the nihilism and defeatedness of the verse lead organically to this, but it just seems too obvious. Not that you need to have an M Night Shamalan twist or anything, but this just comes off as...wanting? I don't know. Hard to pinpoint my feelings about it, but I definitely feel like this wasn't It. the opening line, while clever, didn't quite fit the tone to me, almost too simple a representation of feelings and experiences that are much more complex than a camry compared to a rolls royce. the juxtaposition is cool, though.

I gotta come back to this ending, though. I know, I know, I probably won't, but I can't put a finger on exactly what I don't like about it. It's very possible you mean for me to feel that dissatisfaction, but even still this was an unsatisfying way to do so lol. It feels detached and defeatist to a flaw, I'd like to see a hint at something more than complete and utter capitulation to your own destruction.


anyway, that's what I got. I enjoyed about 90% of it, and that 90% was either very good or really great, just a few places I wasn't personally feeling. definitely a dope verse, and one worth reflecting on. thanks for writing and posting, as always.