why must i constantly be humbled?
need i press my forehead to the floor, my lord?
any pride or confidence has been slain before the altar
my lord, what else could i offer?

i have not much, and i am not much more
than a rag doll stuffed with a cotton soul
casually i will be sat at the table and forced
to watch you take your tea with six spoons of sugar

what a tremendous joke, what a divine comedy
to think the gods favor civility and peace
carried like a twig in a doves beak
angels singing through the dissonance of a deaf mans symphony

a dot within a dot within a dot
if there is much more to it, i've already forgot
i am a carbon copy, with atoms bonded sloppily
and i am not worth much, i am but a penny.

why must i constantly be humbled?
do i not already speak softly? every longing had only been whispered
(till now) i have never dared, nor intended, to disturb
a laughing remark for the placidity of my universe

kept hungry and at the door
a beaten pup and i am not much more
i am brushed off of every skirt
and still when every letters been returned

i still place the vowels with the consonants
into these cheap shoddy words
like rusty flowers in a transparent vase
trying to capture beauty in one place

so many lights chased
on the way home from the store
i am constantly humbled
and i am not much more

you, my dear:
weighed heavily
on my heart today;
your sadness
blanketed me,
and encompassed
everything,
that had led us
astray:

the drunken
bath tub shipwreck,
and the cracking
of our compasses.

what maladies
only a year adrift could bring?

but you
having appeared before
like a bottle
that had washed ashore
sent by the sea
with a script
so often read,
that my eyes
would sore
over and over
once again,

with hopes
they were addressed,
just to me and my absence.
pulling apart every vowel
with deeper hopes
to pick apart
their meaning.

but between
your words,
and between
you and i,
and the half-filled emptiness
of our loose leaf lives,

i've heard
these tack-hung pictures tell:
of your voyages
and the other captains,
bound for hell.

and so
i sent this note
and map, in faith, afloat.
to help navigate
your journey back.

and though
today you did not ask
me for a raft
or for the truth:

yes,
even on dry land
i still hold my breath
for you.

the page shivers under my pen
like soil when the dam breaks
it knows it must change
like tinder to my flame

inhaling, i consume it
and make it a starry night
but keeping my ears, to hear the light
swell and ebb out

beside all hope and along all doubt
my brush paints the darkness, colourful
and knows it is not ugly, knows it is not cruel
but oriented

towards the last ocean
where the world
is but a molecule among it's
infinite
directions.

Air moist with dry hopes,
boils under jealous Sol,
and softly rain falls.

In monasteries,
clay men seek the potters hands,
slight imperfections,
were their claim to injustice--
the worst kind of puzzle players.

i want to stand like a boy on a rock,
in the middle of rushing water;
unafraid of snakes;
and holes and the unexpected whale.
shouting, "Here, look at me now."

diving down
into brackish transparencies;
chasing bubbles
and rippled light,
and all the while wading out
to a smooth dead tree,
that stood long before you,
or me,
or this hushed river,

d
  r
    i
     p
       p
         i
          n
            g

                 off
                        
                        of this lonely
                                                   sphere.

For some time now,
these winter months

have been stuck on repeat:
like warped records, skipping and slurring beats.

Icy needles across my skin:
making me hum, making me sing.

I'm tired of seeing them,
in coffeee shops, and on adjacent streets.

These apparitions, these ghosts, and these souls
behaving like chimneys, billowing out of exhausted throats.

I need these stems, I need these seeds
to awaken, to grow, with purpose through the concrete

reclaiming the land back from Neitsche,
his cruel men, and his frigid industry.

Because for some time now, for far too long,
i have missed the birds and their living song

calling their silence an intermission
tho not visible, not entirely gone.

i will meet them on branches
high up, if and when they return.

Because almost all the time now
i have missed them like angels waiting for G-d.

Burning like leaves, candles in the Sun
pressing pen to paper, and naming each one:

some Bold, some Free,
some Golden, some Harmony.

Because for far too long now
i've interpreted, i've examined the question.

Asking myself, 'why play only one? why play just one?'
stringing notes together in one crisp strum.

And now, this morning, not playing for money,
but playing for warmth.

I am rekindled,
I am up at dawn,

and I am calling out for the Sun.

My fears
are a flock of blackbirds,
that swarm
the extremities of tree limbs,
but by your grace they dissolve into the sky,
their low caws dispersed by the brushing of the wind.

and there,
in a house finally my own,
no longer supporting there taloned feet:
i am thankful.

She sifts through
my words
like a miner
panning for gold,
only finding dirt.

im confused

when i think
of the flicker
of my existence

when i think
about how i've
treated it like a joke
like something that comes around
revolving in the ends of bicycle spokes

when i think
good things come
to those who wait
and not those who take

when i think
all is fair in love
despite the fact
that every dosage quickly dissolves
and divorces
it's original qualities

when i think
nothing is quite as it seems
when every surface
conceals denser meanings

when i think
smoke is a sign
that homes are burning
places that i once loved
are changing.

you were always there
sitting in the study
rainy window pane eye sockets
persistently looking past me

like i was just someone who died
a year ago and came back to visit you
from the grave
a spirit you could save

or shove in the right direction

you were always there
presenting the necklace
like it were strung with pearls of air

like someone didnt pay
6 weeks of pay checks on it
just so some men half a world away could
walk on ocean beds
and crack the skulls
of those chattering heads
of the sea.

for each and
every bead

wrapped around your neck
ms. fleming,
you'd do well
to-

...forget that
and all other things
if i could just
have an inch of your time and gaze
i may not be this wicked
astral projection
your aversions
have yielded to my name

no i might be something else

like a guardian angel
who picks up rusty tacks
and puts out your cigarettes
who pulls up your covers
and presses lips to your cheeks
oh i could be this all
if you would for once look when i called

'susan fleming
if you can be a
pleasant host
i can be
a friendly ghost.'

It occurs to me now,
set before a table of endless feasts,
that i have always been hungry,
and even as i eat
i cannot be sated.

The restlessness cannot be laid down
on any torn spring mattress;
it cannot be deep fried,
or burnt, in the stomach of a gas oven,
but rather, plucked from the tree,
or gleaned from the wheat:
you, spinning so gracefully, sow
and so lovingly, let fall
to a dog like me.

Finding strength stitched in the hem of your robes;
you, my procession, celebrated:
on a sunday, through the narrow alleys,
you slowly strolled,

tying opposite ends
of a wick, lighting the street lamps, so they too may live,
sweetly humming my beginning,
that i somehow forgot,

as i scurried along,
you, waited
for me to catch up.

you are here
with me
in theaters,
watching old films,
looking past
the close ups
of pretty actresses,
searching for
cigarette burns.

some sort of warning,
to see the story
is close to ending,
or the reels are
just changing.

pictures wont stop flickering
and i wonder who you're
pretending to be
now.

but i'm afraid,
alone, in the dark
i don't have
the patience, to wait
for the curtains or the credits
so i'll clammer my way
down to the exits
and continue
to pester the quiet projectionist.

Mostly i hate to shiver, but
as of late
my mind floats
like a glacier

on a tundra. it’s almost as if
i long to be frozen, of finally

crystallizing.

spread thinly across a moment. For

what is winter but
a season of correction and
what else does snow
hide, but warm seeds
not yet equipped or

ready:

to make an assault;
to reach for the;
unfolding firmament.
and how else:

will white blankets behave?
then to collect and save
every prism of light”
crawling toward it,
like the pilgrimage of a wave~
no longer discriminating].

against boundaries:
past, present, and future
and (all at once).

&latel;;, i cannot
quench my thirst
for the ice 0f eternity
to melt f1rst


our corporeal frigid for/\ /\s


into puddles of everlasting
currents.|||\/\/\/^\/\/^\\||||\/\/\/^\/\/^

I wanted to write you a poem,
but there were no words for: "You."

And even if i could pen a thousand down,
it still be inaccurate,

Like studying the beauty of the butterflies in my stomach
after they’ve been pinned to slides.

You are something Mystical, something Fluttering,
something Alive.

Perpetual Explosions:
more golden than the sunlight,


and there are no words for: "You."

my father says
you spread me thin
he doesn't want to see me
dying over you

but my throat swells
with your name
and my heart throbs
with your beat

you only say
you miss me
the ground you stand on
is not a necessity

the liqueur
is your blood
for now the absence
is your love

i built you
eternity
but if that is not enough
please, feel free

to tell me
anytime
now.

i wanted to show you the
swamp lights

because i am not quite sure
but i think they came here for you

like me
every speck of moss, every scale, every
quivered breath in this bog
has been impatient

and finally
you are here
with peace like snow
and hardly weighing a thing

you
were like a feather over the shore
carried like a torch
hands reaching out
to pull down the shades of night

you
who i've been waiting for
for who the swamp lights sway

you
who turn men into monsters
and monsters into men
solutions rest on your lips
and i am waiting
for your
exalting press
again

making me
no longer a beast
but something civilized, something renowned
not quite a prince, not quite the lead
but your giving me shivers, these sensations
of flights and crowns, these fevered dreams
of stepping onto dry land
and not looking down.

If stars
with all their
burning vanities
and distant individuality
can gravitate
to form galaxies,

I think maybe,
just maybe,
we can
make it
through
one *******
wedding.

There is dusk
twisted

and circling
through the air,

as western mountains
devoured a Sol,

boiling blood:
impure, but thick with hopes.

Singing dog songs upwards:
the unrequited lunatic.

Pulled to you
like a current,

coming close
but never touching;

(i ache like the sea.)
or heavy stones sinking-

Find me, i'm Septentrio
and you're Eurynome:

and what was waiting to hatch,
has already been born.

Carving up Chaos,
to make my home.

When I was a kid
My old friend, Hashem
Broke an egg.

He watched
the yoke
madly spread out
and stain the white
like starving dogs
would chase
stuffed prey.

I often wonder if
He wonders

What could have been
If He had left that Chicken

Alone.

tiny. little. indivisible.
                                      —moments.
frame real. for the first time.
                                      —suspended.

I fed. five thousand.
                                      —of them.

posed on the rocks
my madonna

twists her ankles
and knees in

the whitewashed
masterpiece

unpainted
and uncertain

the waves
lay siege

they only want
to lay under your feet

a thousand voices
assail from the sea

they too, like me
only want to be slain

by unending beauty
still unconscious

to me
and a clothed manufactured happiness

the wind
only wants you to undress it

and bare all its love
in nakedness

and just as the forest
dances

to be a gleam in you eye,
jamilah, so do i.

my body
was buried beneath sand
grain by grain
i carried the weight of the earth

i heard the ocean
sigh,
my tongue became the desert
too dry to call out to you

i was
claustrophobic and hesitant
unruly in my sediments,
stubborn, like the rooted ****

i was
quite the public nuisance
but still you loved me
pulled me up,
and dressed me in a kings garb

now i make the
roses weep
and all the lilies lament
their endless jealousies

just as you promised.

Goodbye, Earth:

I have felt every grain of soil
That was meant for Me,

My feet are coarse
From persisting friction.

I love you,
But I need Space

I need to cling to other Sovereign Suns,
To slip into dark pits of singularity,

Where I am one again
with You who are Many.

And every ring
orbits in place,

and every circle
will be retraced,

to where Lagrangian Points,
suspended and sustained,

watching a year spin down the toilet
of our shallow galaxy.

Oh yes, my friend,
We are the Stain.

And the Universe
is flushing us out.

Eternal wheels spin-
connected by wooden spokes.
The center remains still.

there was the three of us
me, pauley, and pete

you
could always see us
smoking cigs
down the street

we were
the baker street boys
we had hearts
of engines, and smelled of factories

i didnt eat
much that winter

and neither did my boys

every breath we breathed
was a cloudy gray
even in the summers
haze, we were mean
cause we had to be,
never knew
better days

still lighting up
mama's face

so if
you
have a question
if you have a point, i suggest you get to it.

because life is short like
me and my boys

and i
aint got time
to be
wasting it
on this
colour
learning about
the classics,
past, and poetry

it's 4:30 am,
time to deliver.

i would like
to treat you sweetly
but you pull away your cup
almost on cue
your tongue extends
its protests
to sugar
mixed with the caffeine
morning aches
of days to-day.

the world spins
like **** in your coffee
poured deeply in
like rain redirected
by the water drain
and still, daily, you wonder
from whence all this drunken bitterness
came.

i want to stand like a tree
and reach my limbs out in every direction
i will let any breeze brave enough
shake these branches and flap these leaves
i will let every last drop of precipitation in
because whether you believe it or not i am thirsty
and whether you believe it or not i am searching
every root and every seed is probing
looking for heaven somewhere in this earth
because i know it cant be made of clouds
No, no, its more likely made of dirt
and I will stand still for the lovers cut
as they carve hearts and letters into my bark
because it is through the pain that i find love
indeed its beneath the cuts and under the bruises
where butterflies slowly devour me, inside
oh how i dream of pinning their wings, to a slide
and through careful meticulous interrogation
i will find the reason they fly, flutter, and burn up before
they migrate
to the poplar, to the maple
anywhere far from me
to any other home, any other tree
i suppose they too are searching
circling the globe
these hitchhiker bugs
creep into the skin, hearts, and stomachs
of many
but oh, how i wish
oh, how i dream
that they would
stay
stationary...

no rest
for the wicked
or for
me,
no my
dreams keep me
tired,
no fire
has burnt my
bed yet,
no i’m
watching
laundry line
silhouettes
from:
the shadow box
of my head,
no this
isn’t pain
as much
as its
disorienting,
no i
need medicine
something to
keep me
awake
because
i forgot
to blink,
no it
makes no difference
whether my eyes
are closed or
open,
no dust
left
suspended in light
over the ocean
trenched
darkness.

a dupe wasp
settles on an orchid,
singing sweet somethings,
melodies that shiver the stem--
tremor, knees.

i'm sure she feels the samethings.
curling toes, and antennae
afterwards, the plumes of her pollen smoke
and a giggle,
beat faster wings!

it is good to find pleasure in the little things.

autumn has come again
so the leaves
are soaked now
with all the colors they have
kept  in.

and people frolick while nature
is dying

and under every mask
the eyes, still gleam like they belonged to children

every trick
deserves a tiny treat
greedy gloved fingers are scythes
they are hungry for the harvesting

of rotten teeth
of breathing ghosts
of temperatures dropping

the naked trees
start their shivering
and the cold
cant hold them

the kids carve their names
in vain attempts to console them
as if to say,
"we're all trapped
in between
the shadows
and the seasons
we're all frustrated
and on the cusp
of becoming
we're all waking
and forever waiting
to be born again
curious, brave babies
in the blooms of spring"

Where the soul stirs,
   in a maelstrom of fear:
       Spinning me down into
             a mote of dust.

‘Oh why am I

             here?’

Where the sky sinks
   and the sun drips, crystalline
      finally exposed

                  for what it really is

The great golden insignificance,
Cold,
         calculated, and still

                                       disconnected,

Is lost on
me.


         over the edge of a thousand cliffs
consumed
         just for the sake of consuming
the summer is frozen
         and even more brittle.

‘oh where are we going?’

under such tremendous weight
              the chest still rises
      but falls further


the distance, my only recollection
      of hugging the coast
                   in desperation

     the sea, turns and flees
ignoring
     my burning witch inquisition

looking up,
        chasing pinpricks.

the Night's veil, glittered with dead light

*'and there is no

                        direction.'

and how fares
myself? in between
the ticking tocks?

the clinking,
inched signs of riots
numbered on clocks?

well,

i thought
You

would
never ask

i spend most of my moments
building shacks

peeling boards out from trees

same parts,
for a different body

animals and i, all crawling
inside, on all fours

the foxes pace, while i wait
out the storm

from my window frame
a west wind whispered warm

the clouds,
admitted the forms change
but that the vaporous nature of it, stays

between my fingers
combing the tangled apparitions free

begging ghosts and gods
for this hollow solitude

in the distance the cities
dismal lights brood

the night is overlooked
and still refused

the stars left holes in their place
that fill in blue when i wake

a dreaming question,
in sunlight, evaporates,

suffused:

is this house a home
or simply
an altered state

reused?

somewhere, in the gold echoing fields
the wind turns through wheat, removes its hat and bows
the barking, howling speech
dares the moon to lower its neck
'hum a tune, then lose your head'
oh the peaceful inches of the evening
where the sun and moon meet
like gentlemen dueling on Swiss Street
who will not return, cracked like autumn leafs
and twigs you walked over
in the middle, where its still
your eyes open while mine spill
you gulp, choke, but swallow
this is my sadness
brushed on me, i am bruised like a canvas
a child in a suit posing as Miklós
but not as handsome, and still not as verbose
and when my vessel shipwrecks on the shallows of the eastern coast
will you pick me out like a chrysanthemum among the dead?
will your lungs burst in silence when you check my pulse,
then my pocket?

i would like to play the trumpet for you
i feel i could breathe
the wailing of my soul into it.

i could play myself through this instrument
into consciousness
from this sleeping dream
into smoke from this flame

i could wisp and dissipate
like clouds in your eyes
can you see the clouds in mine?
or the dew, in the morning left?
i cant remember the rain
though i am drenched, i am dripping
every bit falling, drop by drop,
into a lake never quenched

before words, before television
you have always preceded
the breath standing at the crest of my lips
but turned, scared, naked
retreating, from the beach
back to the sea

where you close curtains
to my whale song
pounding at the door
unintelligible frequencies
on top of waves and across the sandy floor

i sink so low, shaking
chains shackled to the earth
i'd barter for the key
but the guards
they ask the trumpet from me
summoning vultures to my stomach
my burning coal punishment

for swimming so reckless
for weeping on the shoreline
because you and the rainwater receded
back into the depth of chambered winds
slipping like the valves from my fingertips
before the hushed tones of my non harmonics
my soul blossoming out of it
my song on every radio, every wax and needle
in the air wisping out

when you are not the sun
and not listening.

clouds in the back of eyes,
and sleepless nights.

i think i
would like
to fall

into love again,
like a deep dark well

i
could
descend
in.

the days light slipped out--
gravity calls
it in other directions.

i do not miss it,
but sometimes i do
get reminiscent.

passing stones, gray--
far past illumination.
and for moments, forever:
i feel such
a heavy weightlessness.

my mouth agape,
but fear isn't a voice here.
i yearn for impact;
i howl for it.

when i am aging
at this velocity,
every futures growing
more and more
present.

and so
i break fingers
on every lonely stone,

and i bruise, like sunlight
thrown on
smashed human bones.

i drip,
like rain that longs
to be a lake again.

but for now,
i'm reflecting on
stars
burning holes
in the reservoirs,

because
i think i
would like
to land
into a heart again,

splashing,
like a rock dropped
to see where
a deep dark well ends.

why yes
i am

the one; of many.
the prince; of pennies.

counting copper pillars
that cage tiny
dead symbols

of Lincoln
of freedom

i invade quarters
and pillage coffers
hidden in dry wall
and buried in floorboards

those secret panels
where you also hoard
i am also moored to

and if someday
Charon, extends his hand
and gravely states the price
i just may finally be able
to afford an eternity:
of laughing at this carnival;
of screaming on this ride.

i remember childhood
like i forget most moments,
something
is always missing

like every autumn
i'd go upstate
to pin ornaments onto trees
like they were war veterans who lost their feet

and rake
stockpiles of leaves

(i can hear their tiny spines breaking)

the ground crackled
because i walked on fire
it was easy
it smelt stale

i recall the fall
in mounds.

i never landed .

i remember floating.

Abbye says i am a finch
because i can swallow thistles
and other things most birds can't.

me and my steel esophagus.

So am i the finch?
or the cat that digests it?
or the dog who eats others excrement?

even if this poem is neither deep, nor strong enough
to answer that
at least my stomach is...

is it really necessary? to come and go as you please? to share the fickleness of these autumn leaves? to bat your eyes and drain the blood from me? to wrap that filthy crook around my neck? are you prepared for that? to walk in front of me out of reach like every october breath? wont you reconsider? for all the possibilities and peril? for fear of what could quite possibly, probably, and preferably be the end?

yet you continue? and interrupt this perfect re-clusion? and break apart every sentence like a rotten soaked november twig? is this all truly necessary? to please yourself and go and come into days like a drunk naked december wind? to howl down my street like some great holy christmas beast come to correct me? to show me all the preferable, probable, possible, and parallel worlds? to burn all the red where the Tennessee hills once slept under blankets of green? to hold a conversation with this snow as you please to come and go like the first tiny snowflake that will begin to bury me? as you insist? as you pay me no rent, tax, or mind? dont you know? that you should take apart those frigid winter layers? that you should disregard that preoccupied, parallel, preferable, possible, and most probable gaze? why, oh my god, why must you play shy? myrma darby, wont you look here? wont you look me in the eye?

it was on all the news channels,
your shipwreck.

for miles,
and from distant lands,

whose soil
you never even met,
they traveled for you.

all around us
the promised ringing—

circle of:
banshee sharks,
phantom whales,
and reaching shadow tentacles.

glimmer—
you are sunken treasure.

but either from
the weight of your necklace,

or the summoning,
voodoo grasps of
gravity,

we were:
entranced in depth
and the fleeing
whiteness of your dress,

both them,

and me,

floating…

knowing full well,
where you go,

and that we could not venture there,


as our body-suits
could only take so much
pressure.

this, my dear, is madness:
the scent of your blood
drifting

in open water.

Christine says she's proud
eyes wet like clouded burnt suns
she says i'm a man
now, who can love all freely--
i hope i dont let her down.

i've sung to you at traffic lights,
accompanied by a fanfare of car horns.

all our lives:
intersected and interwoven.

longing the measurements
to cross over,

as our impatience
collides with travelers,

also lost
without an atlas,

all so concerned
with where they are going

and not where
they are.

inspecting fashion and make up
in rear view mirrors,

intoxicated;
by how they appear,

and not by who
they are.

so it is there,
in our most rushed hour,

i ask that you
hold us still,

in suspense
of your orchestration.

Beware concrete deers
for they are not as fearful
as their wild cousins,
unmoving to your high beams,
unforgiving to dads new car.

previously
i would of said
love was the purpose
there was a heart to this universe
and it circulated
meaning
to every extremity

but now i wake
to toil
silver and gold pockets
finally a son to profit

my father was right
we're all just a number
and we cant add up to
lofty goals
or life plans
you're not a doctor.
i'm not a police man.

dream
no more my sweet
those are shores
we'll never meet

ithaca
is no more
and never was
and i'm not the kind of king to be waiting on
a prince, a pauper, a peon
i'm only a man in an argument with God
but its a problem
that is often
never solved

life is getting
what you dont want
and making the best of disappointment

oh penelope
it may be 10 years
or twenty
but i'll make it back!
i swear i'm coming back!

with money in bags
and cloudy eyes

'how're you?'

'oh, you know me
i'm making
it by
and by'

'but you're not you
you're not you anymore'

and we'll both get by
not really happy
but, hey, thats life

maybe one day
i'll wreck upon your shore
and your suitors will meet me
and my sword

i can string a bow
and keep my word

all at once

oh penelope
wont you wait for me?

wont you unweave
this burial shroud?

because
i am not
no no no
i am not
dead
yet.

For a year now,
that cat balanced on the fence,

mewing the distance
of the alley ways.

Oh, how that animus
loved to complain.

his lonely cries
and the sound of clocks keeping time,

could keep me awake,
my sleep scattered for days.

Unprepared,
my eyes form rivers

spidered into tributaries,
that ***** out, in search of Your Seven Seas.

my hands treading the water,
attempting to pull out consistency.

i am amazed,
how at once You can both

stand me
and buckle my knees.

Quiet, now.
The Conductor speaks,

wet your mouths
and reeds,

for soon,
He'll point to you

and say,
"sing! small child, sing!"

Upon the dry afternoons,
the heavens tremble violently,
thick with a fathers fear,
that condenses into anger.
The sky must some day fall,
and i think it knows that.
The sun blisters its back,
and the mountains splinter its side,
but still it lurches forth,
the chained gardner to earth,
content to look down and see,
his lover still shares his suffering.

Among the muddied morn'
Gaia quivers indefinitely,
full with a mothers worry,
that solidifies into pain.
The ground must someday slip,
and i think it knows that.
Time has curved her posture,
and weather shows her age,
but still creaking forth,
the spinning ballerina's curse,
and the infidelity of the truth.

sandra, darling.
you're a vacant house
you're a purring creaky floor, quivering
under my searching foot
this flimsy flashlight leading me
as i charge further into
the lowly lit caverns
and further down
to the shivering warmth
in the back of these
smoke filled
hotel rooms

sandra, darling.
you're a midnight meadow
you're a great escaping sound, flickering
under the persuasion of the wind
sinking silver shears
cut gleams into eyes
but this has never been explained.
why are we holding hands
if just to keep me grounded?

i was just visiting
you and this town
sandra, darling.
its morning
and i am leaving now.

sandra, darling.
you're a unique and special snowflake
but i dont fear these
southern blizzards
or the flurry of rhetorical sound
enough to stay for breakfast
enough to stick around.