Waiting to Melt

by Alex Carrigan

Your Sword of Damocles
takes the form of an icicle
above my doorway.

I could lay under it for hours,
waiting for you to piece my eye
and make my brain bitter cold.

However, you will not fall for me;

you never meant to pierce my heart,
so why would you even want to
be responsible for my death?

You’ll instead slowly drip down onto my head
and make me count the seconds until
you wither away from my sight,
and leave me stiff and blue
on the floor.

 Alex Carrigan (he/him) is a Pushcart-nominated editor, poet, and critic from Alexandria, Virginia. 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 had fiction, poetry, and literary reviews published in Quail Bell Magazine, Lambda Literary Review, Barrelhouse, Sage Cigarettes (Best of the Net Nominee, 2023), Stories About Penises (Guts Publishing, 2019), and more. For more information, visit carriganak.wordpress.com or on Twitter @carriganak.