Alex Carrigan

Alex Carrigan (he/him) is a Pushcart-nominated editor, poet, and critic from Alexandria, VA. He is the author of Now Let’s Get Brunch (Querencia Press, 2023) and May All Our Pain Be Champagne (Alien Buddha Press, 2022). He has appeared in The Broadkill Review, Sage Cigarettes, Barrelhouse, Fifth Wheel Press, Cutbow Quarterly, and more. Visit carriganak.wordpress.com or follow him on Twitter @carriganak for more info.

Easy read of the poems in the images above:

Avatars

After Caridad Moro-Gronlier

“Do you think that’s how

he sees himself?” my sister

asks over text.

Our twelve-year-old brother

has joined Snapchat, and his avatar

wears a backwards orange cap,

has chin-length black hair,

and is as white as oat milk.

His Caribbean mother calls him

“Peanut” due to his complexion

making him the lightest of

her four children.

He has a large set of colored markers

he uses to draw video game and

anime characters for the internet.

Those videos show his hands hard

at work to reveal the spectrum

of human imagination,

but when he sat in front of

the avatar creator, he went to

the furthest option on one end.

I don’t know if that’s really

how he sees himself.

I know it might be all he sees

in his rural town, in the news

channel our dad leaves on.

I don’t think our dad had

anything to do with it,

but I do think our dad

wouldn’t see the problem

even if I point it out.

Our Last Breath

After Dustin Brookshire’s “Always”

There’s always someone that wants to see us breathe our last breath.

I always wonder when the day comes that I could meet that person.

That person, somehow, will be able to tell I’m not heterosexual

and let everyone around them know that they disagree with my existence.

My existence will pop their veins, redden their face, and inspire witnesses to

pull out camera phones in case I become the next martyr for the cause.

The cause of my death can never be because of my own actions or hubris,

but I don’t want to give it to someone who decides I’m no longer a human.

A human suit around a miasma of pink, purple, and blue colored gas is all they

see, unless I adopt the camouflage of heterosexual, then I’ll dissipate with the wind.

The wind can carry the arcs of their bullets before I can even notice the

laser sight, turning my sashay into a serpentine when I ride the metro.

The metro riders around me are kind, but any of them could be my killer.

There’s always someone that wants to see us breathe our last breath.

I Don’t Know…

After Kenny Mencher’s “I Don’t Know Much About Him,” (2024), cover image for Oh Yeah! A Bear Poetry Anthology

I’m happy to read this book,

but when reading it in public,

I’m scared to show the cover off.

I can have it reflected off the metro windows,

but I won’t leave it face up on my café table.

I can hold it so it faces my palms,

letting the man on the cover read my fortune,

even though it’s hard for him to do so in the dark.

I can try to forget the cover image

and focus on the poetry inside,

but I’ll always be tempted to close the book

the longer I read it in public.

I’ll find a reason to dig my bookmark

in the slit, to trade the book for my iPhone,

to ensure no passerby sees it in the shuffling.

But eventually, I’ll return to the cover

and the sight of that nude man with his beard

as thick as Brillo, his chest hair swirling in the paint

like Starry Night, his smirk as proud as

the bear body he displays,

and I’ll once again end up

worrying that no one could ever

truly look at me the way he does.