a brief flash in plasticized reality a ribbon of emotion in a world of false reactionary events threads the needle between vulgar sobriety and inebriated wonder as the salt swollen boards shift dynamically beneath bare feet a thunder blizzard over a dead patch a plastic flotilla rocking over brittle coral a graveyard of dream each […]

amidst the humorless prose the hallmark verses around lines stolen from the poets he clearly stalks lies the tragedy of a midlife crisis that took away the wife he found no value in the children left better off without a father’s lies the pathetic heart of a failed accountant incapable of any meaningfulness leaving a […]

i attach meaning to the random song of the windchimes and the rustle of fallen leaves dragging across the causeway just outside finding hidden portents omens in the silvery diffusion in starbursts through the glass and the chatter of the spoon against the coffee mug as i tremble lethargically in the silent cold alone what […]

seventy five degrees under gray skies that promise the forty degree shift expected to happen any moment now times like this make me wonder if god or gaea or whomever fucked up a perfectly fine void with the worst punchline ever conceived is just as bipolar as me maybe i am perfection in shattered repose […]

i can feel the talons gripping hard around my flailing heart i want to fight to silence the voice seductively whispering saline sorrows i am weak collapsing inward as the waves batter me with incessant static happiness is back masked along the ridge of scars crisscrossing my itching stumps silver bells coated in dripping pitch […]

he was an amateur geologist seeking reserves of gemstones hiding in the randomness of strata comprising the gravel where hope once blossomed in spectacular geodes untouched by the light of day his heart packed in pumice jagged fissures from tectonic dismay erupting magma seering passions the immense pressures forming diamonds fron internal distresses an amateur […]

worn shoes sitting placid the holes in the soles of a souless wonderment leaking muddy water to soak through threadbare socks squishing down broken sidewalks seeking sanctity in solemn culpabilities a trail of sodden footprints leading farther from the hallowed halls of hollow homesteads long reclaimed by the unnatural nurturings of matronly nature in vapid […]

i did not expect to fall so fully into dreamless sleep after days of chiseling mere seconds from the long silent nights my typical routine is to lay awake for hours dipping my cerebellum into the shallow end of sleep only for my mind to drag me screaming back to an awake world of exhausting […]

sometimes dreams are just that we wake they fade away eventually all that remains is a feeling something has gone missing we can’t quite point a finger at what it is just feel this loss where something once was it’s why i am so consumed with dreams the best parts of me seem to die […]

perhaps the issues i face are simply a facet of how i have been dipped dangled as an infant by the ankle a modern day achilles yet instead of the sluggish waters of the styx granting me nigh invulnerability it was a dip into a vat of mercurial two way glass cursing me to see […]

carve my blackened tongue from this mouth of ill intent before it cuts across your pretty soul an infection in unfettered adoration gone gangrenous these bile soaked verses of acrid dejection splat wetly on the dirty sidewalk as my heart wheezes vapidly with every dart that pierces dream of insomniac despair pluck these pineal longings […]

lost in another over busy morning, where all i can seem to do is chase heartaches down the crowded one ways winding through downtown dallas a pained smile pinned carelessly to my scruffy cheeks as the cowbirds circle and a fool longs for the icy waves of forever to drown these various spoiled thoughts as […]

fingers twitch tapping the table a nervous tune of discordant notes flitting anxieties into the hungry maw of silent mornings hanging heavily as sirens wail out in the distance after having lived off of coffee and the boiling nothingness collapsing my guts for far too long the sound of percolation turns my burgeoning hunger into […]

ny view is a distortion of fuzzy lines under an awkward prepubescent dawn fillied with undefined meanings in a storm bitter, yet beguiling as i squint to find my focus as the coffee steams my lenses these days begin with an accrual of past due notices angry red lettering stamped menacingly on every sheet flaccidly […]

i don’t feellike writingit is cold in here, seems as ifcrystalstwinkle suspendeda thousand flecksbeckoningin the eerie glow of the television i amhungrya bit tired from the headache thatflogged me awakeindifferentto the idea of writinginstead i shall curl upin a pajamaed ballreading asryo plays low in the back a thousand thousandi love yousin serene fractalscrystalize upon […]

i watch him he acts very nearly convincingly almost human homo sapien adjacent until you see that there is nothing inside but his need to control spouting off semi-poetic nonsense while desperately seeking any interaction he needs to be recognized for his staggering (lack of) genius as he seeks his newest victim he is a […]

i bathe in the (chalkdust)showers underneath the wan (dejection)reflection of the midday moon sloshing awkwardly across the warped boards swollen with unshedtearsoflonging exsanguinate this vapid darkness from collapsing vanity circumnavigate potential obscurities in (saline)dreamshivers until all that remains is (chalkdust)choking the tallow rejection inherit in the midday moon

a perseverance in bleach fumes scrubbing until raw flesh sloughs to the floor open sores burn as disinfectants eradicate disillusion leaving a trail of tear shaped red to stain the otherwise immaculate halls of misery a human blight corrupting the sanctity of this frozen hell a vegetable laying on a vestibule of best intended sins […]

i am unable to differentiate this dark morning from the hundreds of mirrored days where i sit combing through the night prior seeing the same pleas gone unanswered being a god must be the same as a bird you create then push the spawn from the nest the ones that do not slam into the […]

in dreamstasis an eliptical contusion dressed in optical delusion sending shimmering effervescence to shiver upside down into inverted conical receptors stigmatically bonding fully upon defective opioid deceptions to traipse along this pervading cardiac nervousness when i close my eyes and picture you my brain is flooded my mouth goes dry and my heart palpatates leaving […]

i tremble as i fall into the abyss undulating in my chest snapping back dissolving only to reform a lesser shade of myself until i am as indistinct as a propeller circling in a disarming illusion of solidity in separated malignancies

leaving fingerprints in fresh paint smears from decorating this new paper maché mask already soaked through with frustrated tears as the universe mocks my every attempt at heartfelt sincerity i drift alone on the currents of the river styx another lost soul bobbing on the brackish waves can anyone hear me as i bemoan existing […]

the bird is stuck looping three notes i cannot tell if i am trapped in a temporal anomaly which would explain more than a few of the conundrums dusted in doldrums making every day feel roughly and inexplicably the fucking same or if it is an alarm a last ditch measure to warn me of […]

the gravel slides as the ground shudders sluggishly an impending avalanche shifting into a full sprint to coat everything in shards of shattered serenity i stand with an umbrella infective against tumbling stones squinting at the sun bleeding through the coalescing gray seeking salvation in the impending burial shroud embroidered with cursive calamities side stepping […]

a slowdance at the edge of anxietal bliss arms wrapped gently around dreamwisp demise as the symphony of agonies plays a dirgeful lament low humming chords vibrating in sullen disbeliefs a shower of skinflake disdain falling from the shaking jowls of stagnant divinity in the static of irradiated sins whispered screams bounce ineffectually on the […]

bubbles warble in the rigidity of soundlessness permeating these vast ebony depths a jellyfish alight with bioluminescent tentacles hangs motionless a lantern entangled with writhing fish a dream of mermaids with black eyes and shark tooth smiles long hair waving kelp in the perpetual flowing currents sprays of black blood drawing in predators as bubbles […]

i am intimately in tune with my cycles oscillating between included and insubstantial and i went quite a long time without shifting back and forth until the last epic spiral that lasted months and now i feel the sullen pull once more my knuckles carry the scars of the war i wage daily and every […]

he was a satellite knocked off course by computational errors sending him spiralling deeper into the dark as he desperately tries to reestablish a connection he had never severed only receiving pieces of garbled signals as he found himself transitioning from a world he had been so happily a part of to unceremoniously now being […]

as i drove a million ideas percolated through the swiss cheese in my skull i whispered to the lone hawks and the various murders of crows even one poor cold horse standing miserably in a woolen coat munching on hay in a metal rack her breath in an anxious cloud as she listened to me […]

haunted throughout the night dreaming of flowers blooming beneath the ice waking only to smell the pollen floating in my mind tossing and turning unable to find a moment of rest numb fingers from digging deeper trying to bring the blossoms out of the inescapable tortured hellscape of ice to thrive in the light where […]

when i was a kid i would sit outside on a big rock and watch for my father to come home after a long day at work i knew the sound of the rusted exhaust on the old green hornet sitting peacefully listening for the rumble of his approach i talk a lot likely too […]

there is a layer of pure dysfunction permeating every aspect of this day a disconnect between common and sense leaving a parade of jackasses baying at the midday moon chalkdust soliloquies where angels cavort drunkenly in silence as i try on different funeral shrouds dancing awkwardly on the cold asphalt running through this ghost town […]

fanning the flames in the cold hearth where the dormant embers of hope once burned with violet tongues of flickering fiery dreamshit serenades to those desperate lovers clinging to abstract visions of civility the crumbs of desire once heaping spoonfuls now just a trail of listless dander self consumed comets blistering the emptiness of spatial […]

i woke an ugly pheonix rising from the ashes of all the bridges burnt to survey the salted fields where happiness cannot take root less magical creature more bat winged demonic hellspawn screeching another verse to the empty heavens feeling the fresh wounds from navigating clusters of dreamthistle reliving rebirth yet aware that there is […]

every cell screams for sleep except my neurons which thrive on anxiety and exhaustion little sleep hours on the road physical exertion all the ingredients for a night’s rest spoiled by a brain that insists on picking apart each atom of dismay leaving a cat’s cradle of depression tangled around my brain inhibiting my abilty […]

i can be oblivious while the ants in my brain collect all the scraps i seem to have missed a long drive in the middle of nowhere watching as the hawks circle the brown fields lets the kernels bloom in the forefront of my gelatinous goo clarifying all the hints into aching truth someone once […]

try as you may yoy will never be able to forget the taste of my lips the feel of my fingers or my masterful tongue you will forever ne haunted by what you that slip away knowing every kiss belongs to her now that all the things you loved about me belong to someone else […]

can you feel my phantom heart as it resonates with yours through the long sleepless nights where i send my love across the ceiling pulsating with the twinkling stars to illuminate the skies can you hear my adulations of pure adoration the flutter of my phantom heart that beats just for you as the miles […]

the words are there just within reach but a tenebrae of sweet sadness keeps them elusively aloof a fast week where i managed to actually form a corporeal form and frolic as if i were a real boy for once no crushing silences or undue anxieties just a peaceful pace existing in time with the […]

i can see my breath hanging heavy with sighs and apologies vapor filled with warmth from my steam powered heart steadily pumping brackish sludge through failing organs breathing out these accumulated cumulus a tempest rising in frozen effigy icicles jutting from tear streaming eyes stalactites grown in statistical anomalies to pierce deep with every forlorn […]

i whisper my thoughts soft, under my breath let them swirl briefly before catching them in a small glass jar with holes punched in the lid to let them breathe as i slowly suffocate from all of the things i am lacking rows of jars filled to overflowing with all of the things no one […]

i woke up fractured the spiderwebbed surface of a frozen lake each tentative new thought breaking me into smaller stabbing shards floating over frigid depths an abyssal polar plunge into degenerative doom spirals as the wind chimes clang endlessly signalling a new ignoble ending a firefly orgy winking out one by one a steady strobe […]

it must be just as terrible having everything as it is when you have nothing exchanging need for the torture of finding reasons to keep going the same way retirement leads to falling apart we need to need to have routine a purpose to fight off the entropy a perpetual motion machine sitting idle is […]

a pervading sense of compression a lack of space between angry molecules an atomic bombardment a chain reaction confined within a bird bone prison a haunting melody of hammers crashing into a xylophonic cage of atrophied ribs mistimed notes hovering in a registry of anxietal moaning triggering fight of flight fancies to dampen every crotch […]

nothing seems to be any different the birds singing the same simple songs as the sun hides behind fluffy gray the trees still bare tufts of brown grass poke from barren soil the truck still sat idling outside my bedroom window just long enough to ensure sleep was a dead thing fecundate with sores from […]

he told himself even a cactus will die left out in the gravel and he felt it deep in his bones tweren’t no rains acoming anytime soon another quiet night as he contemplates one year sliding its way into the loose fitting corpse of the last shitty one he would make changes stop giving more […]

i lay quietly in the bow of the gently rocking ship watching as the flaming arrow soars toward me the cleansing fire racing to consume me whole until all i was now a soot stain on the rippling reflection of the sallow moon

i lay awake on the parchment thin skin of the dying year listening to the final liquid filled wheeze before the echoing heartbeat pumps its last red marked pages of another calendar goals unaccomplished dreams left unfulfilled laying in the landfill to slowly fade away into another rigid man made construct showing how little control […]

the strip mined corpse of our planet wobbling in the last gasps of sustainability we turn our gaze on fresh planets to plunder and kill seeking modern solutions in gluttonous disdain humanity produces a single commodity death a thriving pestilence on a perfectly good pebble hurtling into our own insignificant radioactive disambiguation there had to […]

mercurial shivers in shades of intense longing pulsating along spinal delirium an open blossom spreading pollen to inflame passions frozen kisses lighting bonfires of desire tracing the curvature of your precious heart the birds are filled with madness a cacophony of off key notes pervading the quiet of a newborn day trilling winter’s song in […]

suffering through technical difficulties spasmodically frustrated in inconceivable dismay tethered by these faulty mechanisms lost in the static of ones and zeros drifting into infinity our entire existences uploaded to a cloud on the verge of sudden inconsolable sadness

atrophied dreamwhispers hover heavily in a gazebo of unreciprocated declarations smothering candles lit to guide the wayward spirits home again a million golden pinpricks a field full of fireflies caught unaware by the frost the dim glow suffocated under winter’s kiss of adoration in icy relapse

the dark clouds cast a nuclear pall in a ruddy malaise over a half dead city settled in for the last torrential hell in the final breath of a euthanized year irradiated rain threatens to pit the concrete leaving smoldering pools etching sorrows into the asphalt arteries trodden by the partially animated corpses of indentured […]

he feels everything but he has bathed himself in the cold waters of detachment so even as he is pained he shrugs it off and keeps on keeping on he mutters to himself how he just doesn’t care aware enough he is lying but also just gullible enough to cling to it hoping one day […]

i pluck these splinters from my stillbeating trove of heartmurmurs to form a latticework of icy disinterest between my mind and an existence of secondary splendor the delicate weave pulsates in phantasmal shudders tickling agonies in desolate wonder as i paint remembrance in sultry shades of apathetic passionfuries

you were given every opportunity to apologize for your repugnant actions yet you insisted on making excuses passing the blame you inherited alone so as your world crumbles around you and you seek someone to put the fault upon find a mirror and stare deeply into the face that caused all the misery you leave […]

each step upon the frozen river fills the valley with thunderously echoed splintering as the ice spirals the surface littered with icy waves and unanswered prayers glinting in the sunlight filtered through gray despair the current never rests a promise of darkness among the drowned dreamers wailing in calcified refrains reaching upwards to strangle meaning […]

i am prone to falling into my own loops dredging pains to satisfy my oblong orbit i mine away at the cave walls seeking a vein of precious agonies to harvest as i rewire faulty neural pathways but once rewritten the new programming lets me slough the old ruination a new version of the same […]

i happily let you pull the blade along my flesh enjoying the way the blood wells up as you carve your initials through muscle unconcerned with hollow bones or dessicated organs as you complete a masterpiece in pain across my shivering body the burn marks left upon the mattress my lasting contribution to the world […]

now is the proper timing to turn tidings of earnest resolutions into ardent revolutions to clutch handfuls of malleable clay to fire new vestibules to hold dreamember bonfires no more candlelight vigils to virtues but a wildfire of ashen hope raining down to smother the depressionary gasps to choke the brambles entangling nascent desire we […]

there is an irrelevance in the air a snowglobe stuck in texas a pristine winter image in eighty degrees of lamentation as the fog rolls across concrete hiding facts behind illusion a faulty facade of filthy buildings nestled in cotton the city shakes in the curious grip of a child sending plastic flakes to fall […]

i find myself obsessed with finding the perfect balance making poetry just with food the chemistry pulling the perfect flavors forth sweetbittersaltspice umami weaving the disparate scents and tastes to dance over the tongue with the grace of a half drunk ballerina in another life i would have run away to paris to study among […]

i hope you get everything you could ever possibly want your every dream is made real and laid down at your feet each morning is filled with soft birdsong and gentle sunshine that your smile never falters that your heart is always full and i will be here quietly cheering your every win loving you […]

i see the cracks in the diving bell as pressure builds i know the shimmering light is too far above while the darkness is too close at hand yet still i walk along the ocean floor a curiosity for the different fish prancing merrily from calamity to an overabundance of catastrophes

five minutes into last minute shoppingand i was almost inthree accidents aspeople ran stop signsin their desperationto finish their lists i didn’t even parkjust made a bee lineback to the roadand went back homewhere i can safelydisappear fromeveryone’s mind again so driven to satisfyi can not tell the differencebetween my waving helloand the hushed voiceswhispering […]

i think i managed to burn off the anxiety that kept me from finding peace throughout failed attempts at sleeping deep enough to avoid dream pacing back and forth hovering on the precipice of panicked necessity howling into the abyss a wounded wolf torn between domestication and chasing the moon limply softy while lancing painshivers […]

the feral fool finds solace in the hole he dug for himself in the loose soil happily pulling the dirt to bury his absentee soul until winter ends contentedly packed into darkness he shall bleed his sorrows deep into the seeds to give rise to a garden of agony in subdued hues when spring thaws […]

today is transparent in apathetic demise filled with angry faces over happy slogans embroidered by small hands in a cramped factory balancing work with manufactured holiday joy these slurries pollute the swollen rivers where filth washes against the median leaving skid marks on the melancholia pervading the light antlered trucks with flashing lights belch toxic […]

wise people say everyday gets brighter after the solstice for half the year they are correct in their bubbling false optimisms it feels as if sunlight is finite no matter how close to the sun we are that being kept lost in the dark is the human experience the length of a day or the […]

i slip into apathy easily a soft robe on naked flesh where anxieties slip into a dull hum of static at the edge of insipid thought a soothing sense of nothing mattering shutting down turning off riding off on the last white line as the electrons happily disperse there is danger in being numb that’s […]

as the year twitches out the last bit of venom still coursing through collapsing veins the spirits of my suicidal friends gather around me to teach me important lessons about finding the meaning of the holidays through hot tears and aching loss the longer humanity is locked down the higher the number of those incapable […]

semiconscious of the bumper cars bouncing off of one another showering plastic and sparks off the concrete median while i thread between cars at too fast consumed by the words singing serenely into the dappled gray logistically speaking i should be dead crushed beneath the trailer of the semi taking out cars in a seemingly […]

i am constantly amazed at how willfully ignorant humanity acts to further whichever insanity they choose to believe i have no issue with the belief in fact i find it beautiful having a deep seated love for mythology i see the intrinsic value in the road map of being a better person seeking to explain […]

today we find ourselves at the farthest point from the swirling ball of fiery death tilted away into the longest darkest night of the dying year when winter’s court takes possession of a hemisphere snuffing out the light as the ebon tide kisses the earth with cerulean lips i long for a coven to make […]

i don’t need to feel special i just need to prove myself wrong a slow drip ripples across onyx placidity on cold evenings like this i curl up into a ball and sob for the things i am thankful for yet cannot convince myself i deserve i never stop bleeding can you imagine always covered […]

can you hear the static? pulsing beneath the planes overhead the cars racing home the dog yipping the birds singing the wind blowing the static hums with a heaviness that wears away the mind can you hear the static? vibrating your skull confounding your senses shattering tranquility a restless condemnation a sultry disillusion the silent […]

my soul cries december full of promise yet left with only unfulfilled longing my soul weeps winter only gazed upon lovingly from a distance insulated from hoarfrosted laments my tears form icicles hanging dangerously from hazel emptiness slicing deeply to bone as my heart screams spring yet no growth pushes up through the thick tundra […]

there is not much work put into making underground parking aesthetically pleasing to the eye red lines with silver sprinklers set next to yellowish lights odd green shadows follow each ninety degree blind turn clusters of automobiles like mushrooms growing in the dank confines of this subterranean concrete hellscape there is not much effort put […]

i see your smile hovering over the placid water i cannot tell which is the reflection i race forward hoping for a taste uncaring if i drown in this heavenly pursuit

i get miserable constipated with the words when they refuse to unlodge from the back of my bloody throat whether or not i ever make anything from writing it is what i was forged in the crucible of life to do so please forgive me if i have grown overly encumbered by miseries and silence […]

you starve to death on both scraps and best intentions the former lingers while the latter does nothing at all i cannot tell the difference between bird shit streaks and cave paintings graffiti from the finest painters works an incessant hunger keeps cramping muscles flush with lactic angst showering painembers to bloom on the tender […]

the sky is impregnated by aerial mycelium fluffy clouds connected through a simple network conveying a sense of pervasive neuralgic demise while my heart is forgotten truffle buried in rot beneath the roots scrabbling for nutrients in the depleted soil of onyx dreamshards and irradiated joy we stuntedly grow alone yet symbiotic in a fluid […]

hot tears well in the corners of my cold dead eyes the light from the indifferent sun remains hidden as i blink away blurry fractals sitting on an iceberg watching while stability returns to a more mercurial status i have cut back on my coffee intake eschewing the need to vibrate at the speed of […]

i sketch my every ounce of love but these childlike pictures never capture the truth there is a missing connection between my intent and my lack of ability of a love distorted by the static humming in misworded thoughts every day is filled with eraser shavings and graphite stained shaking hands gnarled fingers grip too […]

i read the headlines of the newspaper as it blows past me in the howling gales black and white small print proclaiming the end of times as the polar winds shift and collide a silver diffusion through a smothering of pale gray nothing lends an air of sovereign abandonment to the morning swill manic damnations […]

she was talking about something i could tell by the way her lips were moving but i was staring at her eyelashes as they twitched with odd jerking motions a corona of thick clusters of jittery cockroach legs as if her eyes were the carapace of an overturned bug wedged in empty sockets i wondered […]

the traffic is heavy a sea of clots sitting stagnant in a clogged artery leading to a vertiginous sense of uncertainty in the haze of carbon monoxide slowing choking the city i watch as the gray erodes away the gentle blue

there is an expectation i can make the machine defy physics even as i prove through trial the impossibility of which they demand using poor materials warped and unyeilding and expecting a sudden pliability in defiance of coventional truths often enough the issue is in my explanations being off of center to the narrative they […]

all the other wispy spirits know you get exactly what you get yet they watch as you flail about hoping for more then they snatch at the crumbs you have lamented leaving you with the nothingness your rightly deserve it is human nature to want it all but it is the nature of the cold […]

sleep is a fickle mistress and i at my best am an anxious soul this time of year causes my stern to take on more brackish water than the pumps can hope to displace as i pick and choose responsibilities so i hyper fixate on small wishes rubbing them together looking for a spark seven […]

my mind is a scapel in the untrained hands of an amatuer neurosurgeon it cuts sharply to the truth of matters exposing the things i am not quite prepared enough mentally to handle the reality is plainly laid out in front of me clear as day so i see the entirety of the big picture […]

i start with an idea growing consumed with the story as it grows so wrapped up in the miniutae i lose track of how it evolves what was started is lost in the amalgamation of intent to written word until it becomes unrecognisable to the original i cannot tell larger then life only able to […]

the lenticular hovering between disillusion and eager acceptance slipped a degree now the molten landscape of disapproving glances is rotund with seasoned beatings treasonous gleamings as we lose the true reason for the most glorious of all the seasons

languishing inthis festivelydepressive hazelaying on the floormaking angels inthe ashes of dreamfashioning noosesout of tinselto hang myselfabove the chimneywith a flourish ofholiday indifferencefrom fool to amalformed pinatafilled with theeffervescent sorrrowsbeaten daily byan iron rod ofunfulfilled desiresan advent calendarwhere each new dooropens unto a spectacleof miserable affirmation it’s beginning to looka lot like a breakdown

the dishwasher sounds the same as when the quiet becomes too heavy and my thoughts swish about without rhyme nor reason agitating the filth clinging to my mind leaving a bleached skull staring up at an indifferent darkened ceiling where sleep is a tall tale told in whispered voices so as not to disturb the […]

dissociated ina terrariumas outside wasdraped in illusionthe leafless treesand sallow fieldsbeneath gray cloudstook me back homeuntil i steppedout into the dayof warm weatherand constant windsa delusion blanketedin wintry pastichefeeling like springin contradiction tothe candy canesand tinsel on thewrought iron gates small towns on thewrong side of prosperousan empty retirement homewith all of the windowsshattered leaving […]

i find a strange catharsis shedding pieces of myself to litter the land as i speed along to quickly threading my way between the semis and slow moving half asleep drivers i can lose myself in the road hypnosis put my anxiety to sleep and when it wakes and i smapy fingers it feels almost […]

one hundred and fifty miles languishing in the silent west, a forgotten fool with an overload of words yet no willing ear to hear them, sputtering along between the backbeats, drowned out by the heaviness of exhaustion vibrating alone as the sun sleeps behind me racing the night wondering which will break first me or […]