I Don’t Want To Die by Austin Davis

I want to live forever

as a talking head in a jar

like Nixon does in Futurama,

except, I’d rather not

be carried around

by Spiro Agnew every day.

Upload my mind

into a keychain

before I die

and you can keep me in your hand

and listen to me read you poems

until you become a keychain too.

Then we can live together forever

clipped onto the side of some

4th grade girl’s backpack

or in the left pocket

of some angsty kid’s jeans

and we can help him

make better decisions.

I feel like baby Superman,

launched into the bottleneck of space

while my world burns to its core.

It’s a shame I can’t fly

on the planet I landed on,

so all that’s left for me to do

is to rip out those thin pages from the Bible

and roll my last joint.

Everyone knows God

catches flame faster than the Devil.

Austin Davis is a poet, spoken word artist, and student activist currently studying Creative Writing at ASU. Austin's writing has been widely published in dozens of literary journals and magazines including Pif Magazine, After the Pause, Philosophical Idiot, and Collective Unrest. Austin's first two books, "Cloudy Days, Still Nights" and "Second Civil War" were both published by Moran Press in 2018.