If I leave this place a wretch

I will have found two facts;

We should all fear death,

and every hell of mine  is

chalk full of angels.

Doesn’t make a difference

when you’re lonely, but

if you come across this

wretch in the flesh;

it will provide.

If I turn back the hands on a clock

it changes nothing, lately.

Nothing really said to my face.

No good-byes at least.

What is the rest of this then?

Ticking, talking of ideas I don’t

comprehend or understand?

Ticking, walking down the same path

with more ferocity, less inherent guilt?

Ticking, shocking that all along

I was worse than the measure of

all these “sins” and confessions.

Ticking, locking myself inside and waiting

Armageddon or Apocalypse.

I walk through life

as if it were a stranger’s home;

trying not to break anything.

I don’t think history is romantic.

I’m “American”; this means I’m unburdened

with having to be nationalistic or patriotic.

Don’t have to be prideful about hundreds of

years of ******* and mythology.

It means I might hate Bukowski,

but I find him way less repulsive

than Shakespeare. I had to stab a

pathetic sense of “spirituality”

[religion?] in a public place with prejudice,

to truly gain a sense of enlightenment in

pure hopelessness. Something like that.

I might be deaf to some other culture,

but I’m hearing megaphones in America.

They say there’s beauty in symmetry

and we are equally ****** up.

I left this message in your voicemail,

but who listens to their voicemail anymore?

I can’t remember why I called,

or what I would’ve said if you answered;

I guess I’m too sad to talk and

too pathetic to put down the phone.

This’ll be a sad song soon

and not a convincing remedy.

I guess I just called to say hello.

Maybe now, that limelight you seek

is not as glamorous as you once thought.

Nostalgia replaced with a shield of infamy,

infamy that doubles as shield and sword.

Your eyes grow green with beautiful

unrighteous envy, obvious jealousy.

You’d strike down your best friend to

glow like citric, pour out like acid.

I’m not sure if I know you from somewhere anymore.

I’m not sure if we’ve passed each other in bright lights,

or in dark rooms, or daylight, or barlight, or held hands

or narrowly escaped a world trying to pump us full

of *******. Now you’re just mean in spirit, as a cliche.

You’re Charlie Sheen by way of Kim Kardashian,

You’re plastic by way of cellophane.

If it’s hurts it’s only because I try as hard as you,

it hurts only because this time, I want it to.

Cracks in immersion,

like broken bones in

the hands of the one holding

you underwater.

Do I stand a chance?

Could you catch this bullet?

Even if you could, would you

turn the tide or

dam this river?

Who would turn their back instead

and weep for themselves, and

who would mend the hand that’s broken?

Square up, and form the norm.

Grab your partner and abuse them

psychologically without understanding

how or why you’re doing it.

Do si go to an institute or university.

Get a job and step to the right.

Dip into cold waters,

fall into a trap

with broken limbs.

Suffocate in desperation.

Somebody has turned the

lights out and is hiding

the sky.

Strings are the new chains.

If it gets you through the night,

you could sit there on the couch and pretend that I’m not listening.

We’ve been over this time and again, yet here you are flipped

from side B to side A. I hope your tape breaks and this message

is flipping in the wind on a tab with a marker

marked red. I hope you understand.

My life feels like vacation but my… well everybody

will promise you violence over practically nothing

and I think I deserve a better planet. Instead I’m here.

It’s marginally all my ego, but mostly I just want to disappear.

I swear; If I break a heart I’ll fix it, but I’m a disease and a symptom,

and I stick like bad religion. Worshipers take shelter from this cult.

I’d even stab you if I had proper motivation,

and I didn’t treat myself like my own martyr for nothing.

The “real” me may only be what you make of me anyways.

My image of myself only exists within my head,

and in that image I am rotten with perfection.

My only corduroy is torn and smells of bleach,

but I’m too sleepy to change into my skin.

I swear I’m more than just an ordinary sin,

just because I’m also my own martyr.

And everything turns to ****,

but it’s not like I’m a professional.

All this time I spent lying to myself,

and only now did I get it.

*******. If you don’t understand this now,

then you’re not supposed to.

There’s no flavor, no reason, nothing.

No mark to be made.

No accomplishment will define you.

All this time I spent lying to myself.

I have my chance to move forward

and I’m trying.

They lit a toothpick on fire to light a candle,

dropped it and lit the carpet on fire.

She was upstairs and faking it.

The guys next door were cooking crack

for the sons of senators. Americans.

I am in front of  a 21st century typewriter

and I understand that this life is the

flavor of water. I wish they’d just ****

me already and get it over with.

I’m in a land where strange customs prevail.

I’m home. I’m almost alone. I can’t taste it.

It’s over now though. The past makes sense.

The coffee is cold, the hope is gone.

It’s comfortable. It’s over now.

This stick and stones ransack rebellion,

and now a broken appendage is just, well, that’s it.

It’s going to be that way now till I die.

Inside we’re all screaming, even when we scream outside.

Subtlety is not an act of human consciousness,

and truth be told, sometimes I forget why we try

to find the longest way around what we want to say.

Love would be easier if you’d all just *******.

I hate myself, but I’m content with that.

I’m not anyone’s biggest fan, but I’ll learn.

I hate religion.

I love curse words.

I ******* love curse words.

If the world keeps screaming I’ll break the night,

I’ll turn it around, I’ll bend the notion.

If the height gets steeper, don’t make a sound.

"Sacrifice yourself" is the name of religion.

Spinning the gears and faking frustration,

while the system fakes a male ******.

Here is your chance to go sour and

I hope you have the guts to walk into this trap;

If nothing is real, or we’re made out of sin,

what is the image of God?

I am not willing to be forgiven,

I am not the victim of your forgiveness,

I am not forgiven, I am not a sinner,

and I’m not a martyr for your God.

I’m just Austin Heath,

dying, and leaving nothing behind,

in the name of no one or no idea,

and not even poignantly.

Just mediocre.

Home should be the only place

you don’t have to worry about

an ordinary ****** taking place.

****, home or hell if you believe in it.

We’re supposed to believe we’re in

the hands of saints,

with how carelessly we’re handled.

Home should be like hell,

yet better.

"Dear Austin Heath:

Thank you for sending “Poems by Austin Heath.” Your work received careful consideration here.

We’ve decided this manuscript isn’t right for us, but we wish you luck placing it elsewhere.

Kind regards,

The Editors”


Dear editors;

I’ve carefully considered your disposal of my material

and found it troubles me not. Whether you accept these

confessions or not, they’re still hand written on the liver

of every drinker from Cleveland to Ithaca and back.

Thanks for nothing,

Austin Heath.

It started with a pen,
and wound up in English.
No diction, addiction, or
ambition,
to get published.
“Don’t scream and you’ll look normal.”
Screaming “MISOGYNY!”
if screaming at all,
I’ve seen the great minds of
my generation
addicted to Adderall.
 
Some friends who get wasted,
and I remain sober.
Cheap ‘03 cars, yet,
no ones coming over.
 
Actors without work now,
no one with opportunity.
Suicidal crazies now,
crafted from 80’s and 90’s responsibility,
and A is for Adderall.
 
Sugar coated heroine,
designer drugs.
Poor blacks, whites, mexicans,
and asians swept under the rug.
 
“The father, the son,
the invisible hand.”
 
Crack in prisons, *****,
holy ******* in a BMW,
Feminism, becomes communism,
becomes atheism becomes you.
You so counter-culture,
you forgot about us,
“She’s not an angel friends,
throw her under the bus.”
 
Politicians in purple now,
blessed American royalty.
Slaughter the disenfranchised,
poor, socialist regime,
and A is for Adderall.
 
Don’t shoot the police,
shoot the children instead,
or send them to war,
but the war had to end.
“In god we trust, but
in the market we invest.”
So occupy Wall Street,
and get called a hippie,
or occupy college,
and become a dead beat?
 
In high school you’re told,
be what you will be.
Cancer is still a…
“…”
…Hereditary disease.
 
Actors without work still.
Politicians lying still.
Suicidal crazies.
Ecstasy filled crazies.
Counter-culture conformist.
Culture conformist.
Eco-terrorist.
Mindless consumer.
Junkies, addicts,
soldiers, students,
leaders, followers,
murderers, democrats,
conservatives, liberals,
republicans, child molesters,
sexists, racists.
 
No more labels.
 
It was every single individual.
Individual failure.
One by one, we were all found guilty.
You are guilty. I am guilty,
and
A is for Adderall,
and the new marginalized.