as much as i envy the creativity of true artists there is something freeing in the way i smear shit across the cave walls an anonymous neanderthal babbling idiotically about the things i will never truly experience dying with every ignored declaration as i slowly build a wall in front of the only exit cursing […]

i trace the edges of futility exasperated by the obviousness in universal disdain and i am done for the day before it even had a chance to begin tired and aching unable to differentiate if i am nonexistent or simply a punchline the washing machine sat smoking my clothes sitting in filty water as the […]

the sun’s kisses leave scorch marks in trails of brown streaking across the fields the heat shimmering off of the blinding concrete sanctuary sought from the breeze as it carries embers while the city burns along the molten horizon i long for the wan silvery cratered disdain of that accursed dead orb in the nightime […]

on days like this my heart is a seaside grave my mind filled with the sound of waves breaking as the wind whistles over faded granite the sun shines aloof in golden rays dismissive seeking no secrets from swirled shadows lending no light in which to shelter demure self disintegrations i lay sleepless in the […]

the eager onlookers carefully perusing tables chatting with the boisterous authors happily shilling their wares flashy banners bold covers bespectacled with blood and monsters a palpable excitement between fans and writers i see the looks as they read the sign cookies and poetry how the excitement fades gradeschool lessons the terrors of being forced to […]

thoughts flake dead skin drifting a blizzard of relinquished dreams a white out on a sunny sunday morning standing alone in one of the many blind spots in eternal happiness an emotional wasteland painting the tepid skies with crimson streaks hiking across the corpse of divinity lost in bottomless deflection pools in a furious flurry […]

and behold! all of creation suspended aspic in the pus oozing from an ingrown hair on god’s shapely left buttock. so convinced of our own importance, yet remedied with a salve. nothing, no we are nothing. there is no grand scheme, no second act. just an unsightly growth Just in time for bikini season.

my soul weighs heavy today, barren the moon pockmarked cold dead covered in soft downy feathers angel wings burnt withered weathered worrisome anxiously, the night sky beckoned i do not heed. i do not heed. to be free freefreefree untethered unchained not detached a master of self defense mechanisms tinkering, tinkering. cleaning up the toys […]

three o’clock in the morning is for whispering secrets and fervent prayers clutching the pillow tightly while murmuring i love you into the synthetic blend for witches and lonely poets seeking deals with the devil to make their dreams come true the air is thick with sleepy declarations amidst tornadic twisting an underpinning of fevered […]

what am i without this anxiety? seventy percent water and thirty percent nonsensical meanderings. deficiencies where happiness should sprout unfettered. how abysmal is this patiently waiting to die. viewing chaos in the calm eye of the self perpetuated storm. curt clipped responses to existential defeat. a callous callus on the withered heart of hope. a […]

apathy. icicles forming along my shivering limbs. yet i feel nothing. so overloaded on the day to day minutiae each emotion fireworks blinding me in my apathetic haze. disconnected. a constant sensation of falling as i flail in this dissociative incongruence. anxious. stomach twisted into fiery knots. electrified. over stimulated to the point of apathy. […]

i have a story due on isolation but i cannot find it despite these daily attempts the words won’t sing the tale in the right pitch and timbre so i keep starting again and again and again waiting for one to whisper its secrets perhaps it is all the stress the hopelessness in waiting holding […]

i am feeling fragile my paper mache skeleton of hollow words caving in upon itself anxiousanxiousanxious a red hot knife stabbing my guts a vertiginous aching in my deformed skull my ugliness shadows pooling ever thicker in a lightless room of abject miseries where any sudden movement could shatter my indecency a human pinata emotional […]

i am falling into myself beating a hasty retreat from this plastic landscape where everyone chatters endlessly yet no one says anything of value at all just parrots squawking preening themselves desperate to be acknowledged while i slink back to the darkness afraid to be seen i cannot tell if i am mute or god […]

around the airport all the vehicles are white as if rendering the aeroplanes and scripting stories for transient souls is taxing on the software dead pixels hang black stars in sunny summer skies as the loop stutters the voxels forming shadows in low definition and i can’t recall a single name it taps at the […]

they watch me silent judgment unblinking the shadows make the hair on the back of my neck stand gobbling each word swishing them over razor tongues noses upturned as they comb along years of need gargoyles perched in dark corners stealing the best plump clusters of metaphorical insolence to spread honey over their insipid lies […]

bloody knuckles beneath the rocket’s red glare a celebration of a house torn asunder another hint of tetanus from old mother reagan’s coffin nails another case of treatable symptoms left to infection a removal of the fairness doctrine led to opinions meaning more than simple facts leaving the simpletons to scream and point fingers while […]

physicists claim the center of a black hole contains infinite density as a placeholder because they have no idea what truly occurs within i claim the center of my black heart contains infinite density as a placeholder because i cannot find the words to truly describe this longing within my bipolar soul pummles the universe […]

the air is electric frantic everything feels at the edge of falling apart it is all in my head he whispers desperate hopeful choosing to believe it is his madness not the crushing despair of reality causing the world to crumble he needs to write to spill his guts and play in the fluids as […]

one sign says no parking seven to nine while the one directly beneath says meter effective seven to four and if that doesn’t succinctly sum up the day already then the growing pit of despair pulsating angrily in my stomach confirms the slivers of armageddon sparkling in the effusion of gold blinding the city

thank god bukowski is dead. that hunter kissed a shotgun. thank god they didn’t have to meander through this online world and suffer the fools so smitten with themselves puking trash then parading it about in a mockery of art. we are all a bunch of goddamned hacks mimicking creativity in spastic bursts of static. […]

the trails blur brown on brown leaving nothing but hidden thorns in fields of dying dreamembers lines of blood and broken branches blend together in this seething setting of simmering violence dessicated shades where sorrows flourish moving farther away from harmonious wonders swirled into a muck of ugly losses as hope shatters in glittery clouds […]

occasionally i worry about the long stretches of driving i cannot recall snapping back in a brief panic uncertain exactly where i am rubberbanding between states of dissociation and sudden clarity lost in the maelstrom of fluctuations no rudder no guide never quite sure if this is my great escape or another case of slippery […]

the purple blossoms have become an angry pink as the chaste trees absorb the fury in unrelenting waves washing over the world outside as it melts into shimmering puddles of mercurial dream clinging to sweat soaked skin raising red welts a flurry of itching as the white hot light over saturates a day of longing […]

my life can be summed up in increments of two hour parking in those fragments between psyching myself up for a conversation to staring at the sparrows flying through the trees the long stretches spent choking in parking garages empty lots hiding from the world the sun responsibility always stuck in the car with me […]

the creek trickles babbling merrily a sudden influx of fresh hopes splashing into this stagnancy of dream algae growing over the suface in tendrils rich with dismay red petals let loose from overladen blossoms floating blood clots a flare of crimson on a placid sea of gray ripples dance lazily as dragonflies dart over marble […]

a smudge the greasy whorls of a fingerprint at the edge of the lens a cataract floating aimless in the ocular jelly of divinty a squiggle a shadow in the dark lesser than speaking algebraically in a world of common core irrationalities a train leaves chicago at three in the morning the conductor is doing […]

all day long i listen to pins drop booming through the enforced silence as i am relegated to the shadows never quite important enough to truly exist just a casual stain marring the day to day barely acknowledged and just as easily forgotten i was real for a week for the first time in a […]

hollow bone wind chimes sound a mournful dirge clattering together in the solemn heat a coyote whines in the distance careful to keep off the hot pavement skulking in the tall brown grass red dust fills the merciless skies with a crimson rage as i sit tying loops in six feet of rope the weathervane […]

i shudder as the cosmos slide across the fractured surface of my roadrash soul as my thoughts coagulate at the touch of a million stars grating flakes of sublime miseries to gently float a cloud of grit obscuring the view where discontent runs slipshod over sullen wonder a new pollutant in shades of tallow remorse […]

i am a bipolar butterfly chronicling my fluctuations of shimmering madness maintaining a factual log in metaphoric nonsense of my yoyo soul oscillating ever faster from north to south it has been quite difficult going from grub always starving consuming as much as i can gorge myself upon yet never reaching the peace of my […]

the machines grind up majestic bald eagles and call it the price of freedom clinging to parchment they do not understand as they shifted a democracy into a failed theocracy putting personal agendas before the rights that aren’t worth the paper they were scribbbled upon. land of the free home of the slave where they […]

a cluster of brown withered cacti a testament to divine neglect and in the pile of discarded needles i see only myself pathetic evolution needing little nourishment yet still deprived of that small need left dessicated in a plethora of empty promises under the vacant eyes of universal contempt retracted roots as the trickle dries […]

i seek to trick the very wind itself into carrying my words and hopes to blow across this desolation stretching between heartbeats murmuring to sparrows overladen with odes as the breeze moves sluggish under the weight of frantic kisses a cool front tickling the heat of passions in half whispered lines of collision leaving naught […]

i have a sneaking suspicion as the bricks fall to smash down upon the crowded sidewalk this is just another end of the world worst case scenario carrying an umbrella to deflect debris as everything crashes down around me asbestos clouds billow to obscure the one way affections of a fool in a dying city […]

i watched them two older men flirting with the woman watching the self check out lanes one would call her over calling her gorgeous as the other set unscanned items into his bags then he would call her and the other guy would repeat the theft it was a good scam that brought a smile […]

only sorrow opens her arms to sweep me unto her shallow embrace i sway incorporeal the shadow of willow branches dancing beneath the pregnant moon engorged on stolen light spinning gently topsy turvy in polar decline and my thoughts form a latticework of lace to smother wispy dream weevils scurrying frantic anxious the first snowflake […]

my mind races a million miles a second and then hard stop. sensory overload induces a constriction panic seizes my chest the pin is pulled and an explosion of exposition tears through cancer ridden meat i taste batteries on my tongue and pinpricks flare acros my scalp and i cannot fucking breathe and hard stop. […]

the birds stutter as the day begins to buffer a static overlay of demonic heat in the throes of the sun’s fury as we hurtle at our closest point unrelenting the solstice burns hope to ash as summer asserts her dominance on the sphere the children celebrate these dog days while i am as miserable […]

strap me tothe fucking tablejam a spikeinto ny tear ductplace elctrodeson my skullcrank that shitto one hundredsecure my armschain me to thebeige padded walland feed meall the dimestorepsychologies whileyou pump me fullof the finestpharmaceutical wondersgive me all thedrips and pillsand drops and patchesand suppositoriesshoot me full ofpeace and heavenas i vomiteach and everyone of my […]

night wraps itself around my chest a silken suffocation in bands of sinuous velvety nothingness my heartbeat quickens as my lungs strain to draw the humid air into starving lungs it’s the words always with the goddamned words drumming incessantly tapping out rhythms along with bthe cracks running across my placid insecurities as i lay […]

a hint of old spice the crackle of tobacco burning the shadow of a giant standing in my mind it has been nearly twenty years and not a day goes by without thinking of him of waiting knowing he would be home soon i still chase after his ghost using the knowledge he passed down […]

the kids are happily snoring coffee beckons as i read about mythological murderers to try and satiate the itching at the back of my brain stories brew while i allow the words time to steep unwilling to write simply content to love her and her wildflower smile as the day lazily stretches on i feel […]

i like to gather the stones from the sides of railroad tracks to pack tightly into my chest in order to muffle the constant pounding stabilizing my every frantic breath these naturally formed baffles reduce vibrations as freight moves through the country so why can’t they silence my hammering pulse whenever the anxiety pulls me […]

excise me from your mind erase my taste from your lips delete every solemn whisper lingering along your pretty lobes exorcise me one less spirit haunting your every thought bathe yourself in holy water and wash my sin away you believed me to be a catalyst stumbled headlong into cataclysm for all the heaven hovering […]

run the rusted blade along my chest let the crimson well until red drips to stain the carpet in rorscarch dementias proclaiming the story of a lost soul seeking succor in the emptiness i sidestep civility tiptoeing through shards of broken glass in circumspect attempts at noble indifference squeezing between metaphorical redundancies with the ease […]

there is a gentle sea where separating the sadness and the anxiety a shimmering layer where love laps at the tender agonies i float here basking in the warm suffusion aware of the fluctuations all around me but content to remain here as long as i can rare moments where peace exerts a sense of […]

i have finally come to terms with the fact i will never stand upon the surface of a distant planet no glimpses of the frozen nitrogen glaciers of pluto i won’t stand there and watch as charon stays in the same place as the world spins i will never travel faster than light escape the […]

i purr my love so softly a whisper building in intensity that trembles out in a throaty growl shaking leaves from the trees in a fifty mile radius. i prowl slunk low to the ground snarling a rumble nostrils flared eyes darting in every direction all at once. i remain (un)tamed by fate lashing out […]

the car rattles as the airplanes make their descent the shadows pass over the parking lot the sky is a sickly yellow as the sun is merciless in its immaculate ferocity and i cannot figure out a single reason anyone would come to dallas in summer a concrete disaster scarring the earth filled with angry […]

a desert of dream stumbling over shifting dunes no north star to guide me only mirages beckoning out from the endless desolation stretching as far as my mind could project the emptiness within an uncertainty where sleep becomes a tall tale on par with happily ever after and mythical home not sure if i managed […]

the poison sloshes an apathetic demise a sweet fragrance sapping the will to do more than waste away buried in these words unwritten the last week has been an engagement of disinterest the buzzing of insects sheer static playing over emotional dissonance as i chart my position in depression comparative to bipolar fluctuations discontented in […]

i stand bereft of skin in the sandstorm of scintillating disinterest threading the eye of the needle puncturing this desolation of indecent wonder i do not know from whence i came the past in splinters slashing the collapsing heart of the storm eradicating the calm in eerie viridesecnce as the ground shudders in agony all […]

in the throes of another depressive state it can seem as if the darkness is just an ocean of agonizing enforced clarity but in reality the depression is a series of mud puddles just deep enough to submerge my head the latest storm passes and it is only a matter of time before i slip […]

there is an itch in my chest i can’t tell if the seeds so carefully planted are growing or if the rot is spreading roots throughout my derelict soul hazel blossoms sprout cascading deadlight serenities onto the toxic fecundity of hope where corpsedreams flourish in the darkness showering from weeping wounds furrows carved into the […]

i feel like an amateur surfer unsteady on this new board unable to read the curl of the wave yet trying too hard to not get swallowed by the pull of the chalkdust circle glaring malevolently from the clear azure my feet slip tears from the saline spray the sun refracting into prismatic daggers and […]

the machine chugs a metronome of servos moving just faster than the eye can hope to follow small adjustments as the paper flows on into infinity i stand bored taking for granted the ease and innovation lost in daydreams of her and the kids gnawing at stories thinking in metaphors even i cannot quite suss […]

i see the irony in spilling my guts yet shying away from any attention selling goods while finding the shilling to be repugnant all i ever wanted was enough not everything but a fair share to survive a life spent waiting to die the writing began as a documentary on the silliness of trying it […]

spent the night looking for pictures of my newest dead friend trying hard not to acknowledge how the fetid breath of death lingers on my neck realizing my number is due to be called any moment now seeing just how little a lifetime encompasses when i have accomplished next to nothing a stack of unread […]

every time i get a new message from someone i haven’t talked to in a very long time a cold pit opens because i have learned thanatos has taken another soul the gods damned ferry man has taken a friend across the river styx and sorrow burns unquenchable as i sip upon lethe yearning to […]

i smile the same as an overpass on the verge of collapse creaking along on splintered supports trying to maintain a semblance of rigorous structure pitted iron in a storm of rusted denial a tattered sack of bonedust requiems unfurling strands where double helical dismay carried a bountiful malaise of tired regrets grit in the […]

i am the product of immaculate contraception a broken condom teenage hormones a divine disaster gone horribly awry an over emotional supernova in bipolar dissonance i look better gazed at from the rearview as you speed away from the latest in a long series of splendiferous catastrophes as the wind blows against your face on […]

you shuffle the deck a piss poor gambler dealing new lies in an effort to paint yourself as the victim what was once a side effect of the global pandemic now a retroactive love triangle two years after you called and said it was time to wake up from the dream you still try to […]

a brick ofdeep uneasebubbles inmy stomachthe hum ofangry hornetsa three inthe morningambulancepainted theliving roomin flashingred shadowsthe dieselvibrating themolecules ina desperatesymphony asparamedicsrolled outthree coveredcorpses fromacross the lot i am sickuncertain ofwhat i bearwitness totrapped inthis insomnialwhirlwind wherethe enginevibrates allelongated shadowsin flashingcrimson reposeis this partof a nightmarsan illusionfrom sleeplessnessmultiplied bynauseous achesthere is no soundjust the hummingof enginesdrowning […]

some sorrowsdig deepa hang naildripping puswith everypained stepa stalactitein the backof your throatcarving a furrowin unshed tearspuncturingthe cardial sacreleasing ariver oflifeblood todrown everycrumb of hope some joyssting mercilesslya wasp onthe napeof your necktickling asit finds thesoftest spotto drive itsstinger deepa paralyticlosing musclecontrol asthe happinessfades back toanother memorytarnished inthe hallwaysof decrepencylingering onthrough thissoulshatterednothingness i oscillatebetwixt themunable […]

my head is stuffed with fiberglass and my thoughts are scatteted on the warm breeze like cremation ashes today is a day for inner monologues where the ugliness is self contained rather than streamed like fresh piss upon an unwitting world

the fireants chewing through my guts are at war with the spiders in my brain as the caterpillar in my chest strains against the too tight cocoon keeping it trapped in a prison of ivory disdain strained tissues tear from internal pressures leaking poisons across the genetically modified fields where thorns pierce the translucence of […]

a dreamy euphoria in dissociative waves crashing against trigeminal longings leaving a pulsating sphere of painblossom delusion highlighting the cracks in an infinite loop of temporary dismay an exhausting denial threading the needle between absent dejection in prismatic malaise to outright hostility painted in subtransitive shades of caged affection an affliction of numbed restraint a […]

i don’t know what i expected maybe being home would relinquish the darkness of a week spent in a foreign place the sorrow would lessen and the tension itself would melt away instead i lay in my own bed staring at that familiar ceiling thinking the same things catching cat naps and whispering soft serenades […]

last morning a couple short naps to get me through as i gather my things triple checking my double check before loading up a run to mexia cross country up to little hillsboro then back home waiting for breakfast to be prepared sitting in this cell listening to traffic so many miles driven for little […]

it is impossible to tell when some of these little towns simply dried up there are people in dilapidated homes the central color is something between a piss stain and rust boarded up windows broken down cars the once scenic views turned little more than hokey nostalgia replaced with ghost towns i can tell that […]

there is nothing for miles latched a mental tether to the black car in front of me as i stare out at cows and goats and the occasional patch of scrubs i can tell by the shape of the pinions from a mile away if it is a crow or a hawk circling but i […]

planning out a circuitous route to travel today four towns spread throughout this bland corridor of central texas one last night spent haunting this hotel room then a slow drive back to a more familiar silence in a more intimate form of seclusion a phantasm seeking his own sepulchre where the sadness in nonexistence doesn’t […]

the crow fought for every inch laboring low to the ground as the wind a blast furnace swirling around the overpass pummelled the poor beleaguered inky feathered splotch time slowed as i never so fully understood another creature so clearly near as i can tell this place is just one giant truck stop i have […]

a rundown carnival three rusted rides and a few formerly brightly colored tents sits forlorn and dark in the parking lot of the tractor supply store on 36 as you enter sleepy little gatesville a museum dedicated to one man’s obsession with spurs sits across from a derelict brick building covered in posters that proclaim […]

somewhere between pacing and sitting staring at the blue accent wall of this mediocre hotel it began to rain a turgid drizzle the type i suspect falls on lonely travelers headed to a funeral powdered eggs sit by a vat of sausages a beggar’s banquet with a small machine that makes waffles in the shape […]

i have been stuck in an amniotic daydream seeing only shadows in this one size too small slice of texas the indistinguishable barrage of fast food signs cartoon beavers begging for commerce waco and temple feel like horseflies fucking on the decaying umbilical connecting dallas to austin it’s easy to maintain this funk when everything […]

driving in circles the one ways of waco will drive you insane going three blocks out of the way only to find the address i was given was wrong this mismanaged ordeal would have me tearing chunks of hair out if i hadn’t just shaved last night before bed which was a nonsensical gesture at […]

the theme for the next story is isolation usually i tend to research extensively spend a few days combing the web for the kernal the tale is built upon but i know isolation so i guess this one will be more autobiographical in its nature i will spruce it up never let anyone see how […]

i just can’t there should be more some definitive end but i just can’t i would go to bed but the way that my heart is hammering i know i won’t sleep there is a fragility the kids are gone i feel broken at the verge of tears i just can’t if i let myself […]

for all of their bluster neither those on the left or the right wish to upset the status quo they will scream and point fingers angrily but if you pay attention they do nothing else draped in red and blue yet only beholden to the almighty green dollar parroting talking points to maintain the illusion […]

i subsist on coffee and sorrow and this morning even my coffee maker gave up on me leaving nothing but anxiety to fill the tired places where all i have is silent reverie dismantling my tender into a caricature of my own bitter failings planning another excursion for work a traveling sideshow of bleak americana […]

i spend my nights picking apart the patterns unveiling the truth hidden in a miasma of lies seeing through plausible excuses as they build up into a canvas of hidden agendas pattern recognition as a survival mechanism does as much damage to my brittle sense of self degradation as admitting it is all so much […]

this apathetic lethargy hollowness pulsates inside of me and i get scared when the nothing is all i truly feel threading the needle trying not to have a complete and utter breakdown i am held together with strips of scotch tape and best fucking intentions vibrating filled with angry hornets that cannot tell friend from […]

the targeted adskeep trying to sellme a rope as a beltif they reallyknew me at allthey would market itas a neck tieand accept the easy sale wavering betweenacceptance of futilityand the homespunanxiety born oftrying too hardboth lead to the samesleepless nightswondering why i amnever quite enoughand knowing i wasnever even close the ceiling sagsbeneath the […]

my body aches one big bruise a goldbergian array of overly complex failings slowly toppling from within a sac of nigh translucent pink brief flashes of dying dreams a million stars winking out leaving huge swathes of swirling darkness in this semimobile eddifice to emotional erasure treading across these eggshells careful not to disturb the […]

the leaves rustle leaving a haze of indistinct duplicity the way shadows flicker and change in an eclipse no matter how hard i strain to see them they are intangible in their duality existing somewhere between two broken planes the more i stare the less sure of my place in the universe a casual observer […]

i can feel my malformed soul jerking in irritation inside my flesh coffin restrained by the limitations of meat and bone incapable of escape refusing to accept the chemicals are the only real part of this marionette no blue faeries or wishing upon space trash caught mid-immolation can cease the horror of existing only to […]

i slept falling into the depths of my own dingy darkness a free diver lungs shrunk to the size of quarters as i was forced to plumb the schismatic ruptures within my own subnautical subconscious waking every two hours gasping for sweet oxygen fresh bruising all along my tender failings hot briny tears obscuring the […]

i long to press you against the wall while tongue tastes the blood from your lower lip where ny teeth in a fury of unbridled need bit to fulfill this desperation for any part of you intermingling with me we can learn to breathe through each other in a franticness lost in a tempest of […]

a sickly green tinged absinthe abyss pulsating morbidly around the gleaming ruins of crumbling dreamspires jutting from the shattered roadways of this calamity of beauty a fungal jungle of creeping tendrils suffocating the light from this hopeless blight of shimmering chasms in clotted wonder blanketed in silence wrapped tightly in spidersilk to dull the softly […]

i hate these long stretches where the words are all barbed my inclination is to let my fingers trail in the water then look dismayed when i draw back bloody stumps nothing to say sitting silently listening to my guts gurgle an acidic roiling i can’t be bothered to do anything about anxious and distraught […]

i was standing in a ring of reds and purples cast through the stained glass windows of the baptist church large round circles depicting various iconography that while appalling to my own devout derision was appealing to my sense of color i had spent a strong five minutes basking in the beautiful windows and admiring […]

a blizzard of pollenfloating tufts ofdander driftinga veritable whiteoutin sinal dissidenceexplaining the clusterand pressure mountingjust beneath my tired eyesi weave through thissymphony of soft silencesleepwalking my wayfrom call to callcovered in pollen andlonging for home

the words have felt too real lately their bittersweet ecstasy of agonies a little too filled with a poignancy bordering on repugnancy trying to lose myself in other authors and the subtle mastery they effortlessly exude but then i realize i know how they make the dough i forget sometimes because the bulk of my […]

watching the world die in real time is an anxiety inducing semi plausible suicidal situation yet i cannot make myself look away long eschewing any signs of salvation in the unflinching images of death and destruction numbed to the violence mimicking earnest reactions while feeling nothing at all self preservation as an act of intoxication […]

the president the governor teary eyed for the cameras wonder why oh why was there another school shooting unable to grasp this tragedy while millions clutch tightly to their crucifixes a big gulp sitting on the floor next to where their foot once was a gun on the table next to an unopened bible begging […]