The Entire Room Catches on Fire
Alex Carrigan
After Kristina Marie Darling’s "Sad Film (with Empty Channel)"
When I ask where you are, the entire room catches on fire.
I know how easily your name could turn into a spark.
The spark first caught onto your mother’s scarf, which
she used to dab her eyes since no tissues were around.
Around her, the first flames spread, turning your father’s face
fire engine red as he tried to look away from the fire’s spread.
They spread across the carpet and onto the coffee table you
used to sit at, molding clay figures that now burst from the heat.
The heat causes eyes to flutter, awkward coughs to be made in an attempt
to clear throats. The whole room is near inferno in just a few seconds.
It takes a few seconds more for your sister to flood the room
with a change in subject, and everyone forgets we spoke of you.
I speak of you to remind them of the child whose photos they burned.
When I ask where you are, the entire room catches on fire.
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: A Collection of RuPaul’s Drag Race Twitter Poetry (Querencia Press, 2023) and May All Our Pain Be Champagne: A Collection of Real Housewives Twitter Poetry (Alien Buddha Press, 2022). He has appeared in The Broadkill Review, Sage Cigarettes, Barrelhouse, Fifth Wheel Press, Cutbow Quarterly, and more.
Find him at carriganak.wordpress.com, @carriganak on Twitter/X, @akcarriganak on Instagram, and @carriganak.bsky.social on BlueSky.
