[oats]

dope multis, but not enough punches or wordplay tbh. I feel like hyphenating the rhymes would really improve it, too.

other than those points, though:

I thought this was really dope, in an almost stream of consciousness kind of way. What I mean is, and forgive me my projection, this felt like a very generational piece. The thirst for greatness that is known to be real but elusive to capture, the battles between ambition and laziness, the undercurrent of defeatism. I fucked with this on several different levels, not the least of which is the airtight writing. A few of my favorite lines:

I barely even dream lately it’s a fiend trading hits

through lethargy, or something - empty efforts to be nothing

^^just the latter phrasing of lethargy being an "effort to be nothing" really hit home for me. It's simple and true and crushingly so. Reminds me of Kanye saying "for me giving up is way harder than trying," which is a sentiment I nod my head to but can't relate to in the least.

Of course the "quotable" line is deserving of the love it's getting, though it is a bit ironic to quote a line that says I'd rather be forgotten than simply quotable. Purgatory, in a poetic sense, seems a lot worse than the intensity of hellfire.

I loved the closing line, because I think it was a clever way to pull the carpet from underneath the rest of the prior emotions. Writing is a weird hobby/passion to have. On the one hand, especially with computers and the like, it's the go-to mechanism for basic bullshit and transactional interactions. On the other, it's a hallowed art that probably best captures immortality, since words have no aesthetic that can visually erode. Though you may have worded it just to make the ending rhyme better, I tend to think the flip was intentional. Writing as an act is so ingrained that if something was truly important, it wouldn't be thrown into a verse (you post on NC). The parenthesized part may or may not have anything to do with it. Either way, I think it spoke to the longstanding tension of being an artist vs. making art. It's useless in almost every "real" way, but in terms of the deeper connotations of humanity, art is kind of the only important work there is.

Anyway, sorry it took so long to get to this, I've read it more times than I can count at this point, just never stuck around to type everything out. It was dope.