I’ll disseminate into atmosphere/ like an earnest prayer/ or thunderclap/
join the worrying firmament/ may my flesh turn to heaven for all worms
& every devil/ may my blood pool like the Tyrrhenian sea/ pocked volcanic 
& swarming with ghosts in the ocean/ the tincture to quench thirsting dead 

I’m succumbing to cosmic osmosis/ I’m seeping out of myself/ sieving
into ether/ into sepulcher/ I’m wounded (as an asteroid lurches into oblivion)/
I’m worried (as a mother reaches into her sick child’s undulating ribcage/
pulls out organs slick with detritus/ rampant with sorrow & intoxicants)

See me for what I am/ lunar obscurity/ a devil in the details/ the devil
sings me lullabies/ & heartfelt exorcisms/ the devil is a metaphor/ & so, so much more/
I am a pyramid built by blood ritual & divine bile/ vandalized by sapience/ it is freezing
in the far beyond/ I’m but many frightened snakes/ writhing separately for warmth

Nicholas Alti writes with and about trigeminal neuralgia, depression, addiction, and strangeness. He’s an assistant editor for fiction and poetry at The Black Warrior Review. There’s more of him at Dream Pop, Hypertrophic Press, The Hunger, Pretty Owl Poetry, and elsewhere.