[ACTIVATE SELF]

Razah

“If the leaves turn brown how do we go back”fat wife

Step, crunch.fat wife

I like the title. The use of the onamonapia not only creates imagery, but it also engages the sense of sound, which works to add an extra layer of depth to your world.

I like the way the leaves crackle.fat wife
How they break up, fall between the recently cleaned gravel

The writing is clean. The consonants sounds roll of the tongue and add flavor to the flow. However, the imagery isn't adding up precisely. I know you can clean a street, driveway, sidewalk, what have you, but who cleans gravel?

Every detail engraved in my brain, this is the time I'm in
Complete sorrow.fat wife
As stable as a heap of leaves swirling at the slightest wind

The imagery is solid. Metaphorically it's A1. On the flipside however, the mechanics read very laxed. Your scheme is all assonance and inners, so it's smooth enough to pass as flow, so to speak, but the end rhymes are still too sparse for my liking.

I can't stop tapping my foot- I'm falling fast
Concerned my shoes are blanketed by fallen ash

Dope. Give me more of this.

Had a bright future, that thought makes my spine shiver
I light another one- Too bad I'll never get to see your light flicker

The emotion is evident, it's somber, but atmospheric. The wordplay is subtle, but nicely delivered and the flow is smooth.

Finally it sunk in, I fell to my knees- Couldn't walk, I had to.. crawl
Life spiraled out of control, in the perfect season, it had to.. Fall

Miss you.

Nice.

Okay, so, I thought this was a nice little play on the season. Especially, since fall always reminds me of a somber time of year. Thus, I liked how you flipped that into a heartbreak scenerio -- a break up, a death, whatever -- it was pure poetry. Or maybe you just miss the summer months a lot. Lol. Either way ... I dug it.

Innovator

This noose ties together a wretched disdain for life
Grip the rope seams tighter for the pain to contrive

"Pain to contrive"??? Huh? Pain can be contrived, but pain alone (in a non personified state) can not contrive anything. But, perhaps I read that incorrectly or maybe I just misinterpreted your intent?

Sweet surrender to the blackness of the soul’ core

The soul'(s) core? Man, I love that. Poetic wizardry right there.

Spilling blots of nothingness on to this canvas never more.

You even channeled the late great American wordsmith Edger Allan Poe for a cameo appearance. Always a plus in my book.

But he never sores from the cuts, yet he soars with each open door
That He hinges between sanities sake and reality’s break.

What I like about your brand of writing thus far is that it invokes inquisitive thought in a good way. It's not senselessly cryptic or enigmatic, but rather artistically philosophical in it's approach. It's grounded in comprehensible ideas, but as a reader I have to figure out why and how it all makes sense. For instance, "sanity's sake and reality's break" is a very clever way of saying that he's borderline crazy or barely holding it together. That's dope. OAN, I think "sanities" is a little too archaic given the modern theme of the topic.

Everything’s at steak, while no one cares to relate.fat wife
A passer by, only by chance kind of guy real harmlessfat wife
But a ghost between silhouettes, a shadow in darkness.

You're words are dancing off the page. Your poetic lingo is unique. My interpetation of your intent is that this is the kind of guy that rarely ever gets noticed. A real flower on the wall type guy or as you more eloquently put it, "a shadow in the darkness". Damn. That whole section is a HOF worthy quotable.

A naggin twitch gnawing at the back of your thoughts
Clawing deep into the catacombs of each sin you sought.
Remembering every detail you conveniently forget,
He’s a constant melody, the rhythm in your concerts plot.
The one pulling the strings until life becomes a knot.

Damn, who is he? Your subconscious' conscience? I'm digging the suspense. Also, nice tie-in to the picture. Excuse the pun.

Holding tight this noose holds life at both ends of it’s plight
On one end ascension, soaring inbetween the rays of light.
On the other guilt and shame, ridicule and disdain
Such fitting options for lost souls in the folds of their pain.
To waste life is profane, but who’s the one pointing outfat wife
Who to blame? Such is his game.

And so twisted is this frame we humans seek mortalities pleasures
Eternal life in the heavens avoiding death at all measures.fat wife
While the treasures we seek lay beside us in a heap
Mortality sighs with a satisfied grin
He knows most of us will never reach our potential
Becoming statistics to his whimsical whim.

Okay, so if we look at time in a linear fashion, one end of the rope signifies the beginning, whereas the other represents the literal "end" -- as in death, mortality, [insert synonym] -- and the closer we move towards that end, the rope begins to tighten around our souls/necks until we succumb to it's fatal grip. Dope.

Mr. J

My mind settles on the page & hope whittles away.
It could leave an opponent enraged with little to say.
In the middle the claims start to become outrageous.
The testing follows, prepping up the sound stages...
Who could claim such synchrony existed? How time flies.
How cruel it is to pace about with the blind eyes.
Rewind..I'm fine...sometimes the irregularities get to me.
Ever since the great crash the world doesn't make sense to me.
Now I know what comes first like parentheses....

That last line is ill. I'm sure it's a play on the algebraic Order of Operation (PEMDAS), which is a very cool idea to exploit. Everything before it is also pretty good -- the flow, vocabulary, transitions and the syntax -- the story hasn't fully revealed itself just yet, so It's hard to judge. But I'm definitely intrigued to see where this is heading.

Society is in a free fall while another dumb bitch tries to get next to me.
The aroma of strawberry yogurt arouses my senses but I got text to read.

Descriptive.

Got a lot of threats to meet, before I hide the body & Jekyll me.
But now every other moment...well that doesn't make sense to me.
Yesterday the dog was running by now he's wobbling in.
My wife has a bunch of emotions that she's been bottling in.
Numerous bottles of gin, a reeking stench brought on by harboring it in.

I'm digging the contrast, dilemma and honesty found in your words. It seems to me you often like to inject your real-life into your writting (if not, you fooled and sold me on idea that you do), which makes your verses exhude authencity and genuineness . Also, the "bottle" references were well constructed and worded.

Rivers that are cried become the memories in the warped floor.
Her wails echo in the corridor & make me abandon all support for her...
Down on our luck mixed in the same old same old that keeps unraveling.
Put it all down on luxury dining, expensive diamonds & constant traveling.
Our greed becomes the same cancer we battling.
Looking inward hoping there is one last stash we can open up.
But we've been down on that green, golfing with a broken club...
Questioning expenditures from this year and the last.
Now that the chips are down, we deal with blowbacks.
There is no more green in our money tree & it won't grow back.
If the leaves turn brown........how can we go back.

Okay, upon reflecting on all of your words up until this point, I surmise this piece is about a man/couple that was once well-to-do. His life and happiness always revolved around money, but, after the finacial crisis of 2008 his wealth began drying up. Now he's down to his last bit of cash and his kingdom is falling down around him. Deep. Interesting. Also, the money tree part was golden.

We cant...after the wreck Ive been left in an amnesiac state.
fading in and out of awareness & plus I can no longer see that great.
these blinding flashes of migraines start to lead me astray.
my subconscious starts to take over, everything Im hearing it say...
there is no turning back after tonight, you can leave or you can stay.
my pen scratches against the page cluttered in my journal.

Nice callback to the introduction. In addition, I dig how you're describing the character's decline and deterioration, both physically and spiritually.

all the injustice that is dying inside tells me I never deserved you.
the life after becomes a witch hunt until they can properly burn you.
I guess when you are ~12~ like I am, everyone else is Mary Kay Letourneau.
the memories come rushing back to me...
I grin & think....thats what you get for fucking with me

What in the total fuck?!? This piece just went off the rails. I have no idea how the whole Mary Letourneau part even makes sense. It seems completely detached from the rest of the story. I get the reference to the character being 12 having significance to the case, but what the hell does that have to do with the rest of the content? Is this suppose to be written as the memoirs of Vili Fualaau or something? If so, the whole being rich, having a wife, blah blah blah, doesn't align with the real-life reality of the subject being examined. Furthermore, there were no breadcrumbs laid to suggest there was ever a feesible connection between the bulk of the story and the twist -- which seemed to only be thrown in for the sake of having one. Maybe I'm completely off-base here? I must be. Maybe you're implying something completely different than my interpetation? You must be. Either way, I'm completely lost. Hopefully, it's due to fault of my own.

VOTE -- Innovator

Reason
Raz: His piece was beautiful, well paced. He had a slight mechanical issue with the flow, but overall it read smoothly. His concept was nice and his words were poetic. It was a great read. But too short to compete here.
Inno: His piece offered everything that Raz's did, just more off it. His flow, poetry, turn-of-phrase and thought process was all on-point and high-level throughout the entirety of the read. However, his story was all an abstract concept that could have been better explored through the framework of a more concerte narrative. Still an excellent verse nonetheless.
MJ: Each verse seem to be slightly better than the last, in the sense that 1 was good, but 2 did what 1 did while adding a little extra. Whereas 3 did what 2 did, but also added a little extra on top of it. In this instance, Joker had all the mechanics and poetry that made Inno's verse a standout, but wrapped it in a story-based narrative that provided a face to the words. And because of that he had this battle won. In the bag. Well, up until the end that is. And maybe I'm an illiterate idiot. Probably I am. But, honestly speaking, I couldn't make sense of it. It changed the entire trajectory of the read. I think in this particular situation a safe ending that brought resolution and closure to the reader's assumption would have been a more fitting way to end it. As opposed to a conclusion that bred confusion.

In any case, I think Inno takes the dub for have the more sound verse of the three .

Regardless of the victor this was still a highly enjoyable and superb battle overall.