NICHOLAS ALTI

we would never loath you from our lavender warmth
Bertolt dearest pass me the revolver & rose pedals
from night I shoot the moon for you I took &
I took & I take & we began as a slow explosion until we
realized we were always ascending Max wanted
to give the sun to his mother because love is
confusing as it is erratic but Bertolt didn’t mind
when my tongue from my mouth separated &
floated in our bathwater muttering detritus detritus in fact
he said this inspires me to become better my severed
speech doesn’t waver anymore Max thought it kind
to spew forth blood upon us so we were soaked
in massacre & hibiscus soap & we crave validation
Max is blissfully bodyless beyond blood & heartbeat
I whisper to Bertolt through the blood I can not afford
to come down so he snaps off a chunk of skull
fishes out a hunk of brain matter for my medication
poor Bertolt is nothing but permanence & insatiate
I whisper to Max through the blood I can not afford
to face myself so he haunts my heart until it hurts & then doesn’t
once we were human now we are all blooming anew
like chrysanthemums in a battlefield littered with limbs
Bertolt never meant to disambiguate & he meant well
but Max was still confused so he reached into our warm
ecosphere of steam & plucked the wild
severed head of god & carved in its forehead BAAL
Bertolt was so happy & we stitched tenderness! into our lips
our only recourse our only will god’s severed head
BAAL was screaming you fuckers! so we drowned the fucker
its anguished eyes looking up to us in prayer desperate like us &
I farted in the bath making blood bubbles we all laughed
god looking up to us choking on my fume & drowning
finally turned to the blood pool BAAL & all of us slick
in flotsam & excessive gore worship then ingurgitate
we give each other our alms we give each other moons
to our mothers we offer the sun & would bury the earth
our children are every beast we crave for them tranquility
we surrender our fear of running out of worship never worry
over god I tell Bertolt I want to become better to Max I
whisper I want to do anything a good friend would do
they let me know that to stop taking with violence
I must stop taking in violence & I tell them I am scared
but they know that already & so are they & I pray
to the god I’ve drowned I pray I’m not sorry about
the confusion of my needing & together amen we have
preserved one another & I will never stop requiring affection

leviathan like me
after Tunde Adebimpe

real slick shivers         arrows spilled from quivers              we take them from the floor
thrust them slow         into our grieving / our guts               i take more of this / all of that
give yourself help        wounds will spill when ready            i have oozed / am ill already

when the moon is round & full / gotta bust that box, gotta gut that fish

i take my time to make progress
                  a slow rolling cherry of a blunt in the night
                  i take time from you / i am a thief & crook

had a drink had another drink damn
                   a chasm is filling & draining without bias
                   i honestly will lie about this / you asked me

im gonna go ahead & roll up on the sunset
                   with nothing in my eyes & a car trunk
                   loaded with bottles to milk drips from 

when the moon is round & full / gonna teach you tricks that’ll blow your mind

first gotta hit an atm        don’t wanna keep my plug waiting      is it so bad to need so bad

this has been this forever      want after want & then what        i used to help plant flowers 

& i used to think more clearly   had goals to write down             could convince myself if

shines when the sunset shifts / when the moon is round & full

in every sense of taken i have took
                  from thing to thing, from mother’s tears to alchemy 
                  were i tenderer / were i a diaphragm capable of flux

anyways, nothing is going to change for me
                  this is honest & fine & bothersome
                  i want to go to a party / a moonless sphere

we are coming up fruitless the final sunrises of harvest
                 a colorful place with plastic flora is not where we should settle
                  like mouths without tongues still making the shapes of songs

I’ll turn you out in kind / when the moon is round & full

I Beg Aliens to Love Me or At Least Alter My Current Entropy

is it so wrong/ to ask you
for everything//                             isn’t it necessary// 
                             to need/ endlessly//                              I wanna kiss
crushed Percocet in purgatory/     go away//                            want/
                                                                    how came me
to this wayward strange/                       look at the birdy// in flight/
                           it’s me            
                                        birdy//              soaring &/         phenomenal        

I'm so high                                      & then//                 help! the aliens
                      are abducting me/
why won’t anyone stop                         filming//          my bad side/
maybe they’ll probe me//                                            shove a dream
                          up my//       throbbing/    spirituality
                                                 a hope down my// needy              throat
but I bet they won’t// kiss my              scratched flesh neck//
                    tell me they love me/            give me// my       necessities

just take me home to my crown of rattlesnakes
& absurdly artisan substances// please don’t
                             upload me      begging// online/ for your massive//
spectacular touching/
leave me to my/             abusing spree//          I don’t need         truth 

PLEASE//                            just never ever forget          me//     unless
i turn out/        in the end//
                                                         forgettable//

in my dreams I fear      sleep as I fear      awake when awake

in my sleep I fear          death as I fear      alive all the time

I dream of meaningless      or
                                                     death            or
                                                     me but I’m     awake
I know//      love/       the aliens made// my awful    body     different
corpuscle mountain/ kidney cemetery/ liver infirmary/ I’m off my/
                                                                                                          meds
could I vanish like colloquial worm/ sawed off syllable
from the final tongue/ newt wet & dumb/     
                                                       fuck sobriety I need//         help
tell me
                               what’s your fav way
to pretend you’re dead/ in spring?//      can you write a dissertation
on vomiting canned beans?//                                     
how am I supposed to head first/ anything/

                                                     what’s up with// neurological disorders/
impeding my progress//      is this too cause aliens//        why isn’t any
                                                   body
talk about      ouch/    
                                                       how much it hurts to//           be/
& glistening slick// lurch into moonbeam                 putrescent/
                                                                 glorious & disingenuous//
isn’t the root of joy comfort//
password reset                                             my kidneys/          need
new liver// heart      transplant// satyr nerves/           toad brain 

Heat Death Paradox

[The second law of thermodynamics indicates heat can only be transferred from warmer
to cooler objects until thermal equilibrium occurs. Considering the universe eternal,
stars should’ve already cooled by warming their surroundings. Thus, everything should
be at the same temperature, and there should either be no stars or everything should be
as hot as stars. If the universe is eternal with everlasting matter, how has thermodynamic
equilibrium not occurred?]

your god was created in a cave by fantastical men                                     your god wanted war
my god was created in a dream & sought rest there

your god wanted heaven to have misdemeanors & curfews
my god wanted heaven an immense parabola

your god took my god’s hand & licked every finger                                     your god wanted war
your god looked my god in the eyes & said heavenly, 

I can see the fear of betrayal in your eyes, I’d never ever

& then your god’s tongue moved to my god’s neck &                                   your god wanted war
afterwards my god ended up with its skull bashed in from every direction

your god wanted an endless feast of human heart for dinner
my god wanted to drink wine with crackers & cheese while falling asleep on the couch  

your god wanted my god to wear a latex bodysuit inside an iron maiden & call itself worm
my god wanted your god to suffocate on carbon monoxide but at least drift away peaceful

your god wanted war    your god wanted war    your god wanted war     your god wanted war

once my god woke up with a wooden stake through its heart
your god suspiciously holding the end of the wooden stake

& with a face smeared in blood & a violently throbbing throat said it was an intruder, some red
heathen with goat hooves who also, you’ll notice, bifurcated your favorite flowering continent 
just to witness sleeping creatures wake in a furious plunge & drown      your god wanted war

your god wanted an entire book of heroic benedictions & terrifying damnations
my god wanted Pokémon to wander tall grasses in Wyoming & Nova Scotia

your god wanted all art in its divine homage
my god wanted to watch cartoons, naked forever  

your god knew the technique of flight & hid it from mine

it would go into the sky & decapitate the first morning bird caught singing a hymnal without
amen it would fuck & strangle any star that burned brighter than the fire of wrath in its eyes

your god wanted war
my god was stabbed in the neck

my god was drowned in pig blood                                                      my god was devoured by rats
my god was torn apart by horses                                                  my god was crushed rock by rock 

your god wanted war your god wanted war your god wanted war
your god wanted war your god wanted war your god wanted war

your useless god caused us innumerable death
my god’s uselessness preserves us

your god ingurgitated blood until impossibly corpulent & pierced himself to flood the world with
the very blood from which mankind has been drained for your god to grow engorged in excesses

my god wanted to smoke a hash spliff & mellow out
my god wanted to escape your god

YOUR GOD WANTED WAR
YOUR GOD WANTED WAR

yourgodwantedwaryourgodwantedwaryourgodwantedwaryourgodwantedwar
yourgodwantedwaryourgodwantedwaryourgodwantedwaryourgodwantedwar
yourgodwantedwaryourgodwantedwaryourgodwantedwaryourgodwantedwar

your god left me war
your god left me godless

my god in its useless death
wishes gods were left dead

my heart in my human body
wishes we worshiped nothing

my heart in my human body
wants to sing to yours in prayer                                                  but your god wanted war

[The problem is one of paradigm. Considering Big Bang Theory, which posits a finite,
non-eternal universe, the universe is too young to have yet reached equilibrium. The
paradox only arises in the constricting chambers of a sempiternal universe paradigm
wherein matter is everlasting and would always have recognizably been the universe.
Heat Death is still in motion as the universe blooms.]

Passiflora foetida

I’ve entered my broken body
into the broken
body contest
confident I’ve broke badly

hopefully I get first prize:
a visit to the broken body shop
with promises of mending
my natural oopsies & even
some manufactured whoopsies

so here goes
my motivational monologue: 

every piece of me
garbage burning green
high on everything
within reach

fuck book club
I'm wasted
don’t read my sway nor ebb
fuck wordplay play dead &
spell out i-n-c-u-r-a-b-l-e 

hey look at my
contemporary headfuck
& palmful of Betelgeuse

it's as if my brain damage
makes me sad often
it’s as if no god loves
my fucked head

can I interest you
in brainless discourse
with a touch of
homogenous deathwish?

I’m trying to invent the pharmaceutical
I’ll overdose on &
can I interest you
in recycling your pill bottles?
in recycling to me your pills?

& if it’s not too much to ask,
everyone,
fondly recall me forever—
thank you.

(from my cranial fissures bloom
stinking passionflower & my eyes sprout
Venus mankindtraps I wreak of corpse
flora I am definitively fractured
 & split into scrap fractals)

don't forever

why would you play a guitar with swords for strings why would you play a trumpet that’s a musket? don't put your mouth on weapons don’t slay your fingers all the way to your elbow. why would you take a walk on piranhas see that’s the problem you wanted to go for a walk in your favorite little woodlands path now you’re in a deep evil river being shredded by fish with crazy teeth. why would you climb stairs why would you get out of bed quickly why would you go on a boat why would you ride a bike why would you brush your teeth why would you sneeze. when you know your head is a grenade you know any motion pulls the pin. my head is a grenade maybe a sack full of them i miss moving without exploding i miss when i didn’t explode but here i am your friend a bomb.

my trash is not your treasure
garbage is the waste my body happens to be
your treasure is better

don’t call pain good pain hurts bad & forever
pain hurts no good hurt don’t call forever pain

time makes all pain hurt

remember bombs & why fireworks are apparently pretty
is because they’re not inside of you

i want to gift you my body to place rage & may we both walk away from it better. why would you bend over why would you put a lover’s hand on your cheek? i want to give you my body & we can talk about how we don’t want it anymore. why would you play with a dog why would you hug your friend tight? i want to grow out of my body & gift you the former shale of me & nod my head & say look how much better i am beyond post-corporeal. why would you go to a party why would you fuck your favorite person? i want to rewire my urge to move & function as a person free from their body constantly attacking itself. why would you enter a new space where you don’t know the bumps of the terrain why would you bother getting on your knees when you know you’ll have to get up eventually? i want to get on my knees & pretend i believe & beg you to help me help myself.

i remember the doctor’s shiny weapons
i was poor i thought they were toys

i remember the masks people wore before my blood hugged them
i was young i thought they were fun

i remember fewer & fewer things
i remember though the non-universal law that anything i do

will come back to destroy me
with an unequal & much greater ferocity

Nicholas Alti's work has appeared in Dream Pop, Okay Donkey, DIALOGIST, Pretty Owl Poetry, Pulp Literature, and elsewhere.