By Alex Carrigan
You wore an orange shirt
depicting the snarling, gaping
maw of the cat from Obayashi’s House.
It’s red eyes glared at me
as you passed me by several times
in the crowded DC bar.
You wore a leather harness
whose Y-shape could barely contain
the hissing noise the cat emitted,
which drowned out the DJ’s track
and threatened anyone who
faced you on the floor.
I see someone come by
and rub your belly
as they make their way past you
and head towards the bar.
It looks like they’re tickling
the cat’s chin,
only to receive its hatred
and curse instead of a purr.
Several times I imagine
coming over to you
and hoping to rub your belly
or to tell you how House is
one of my favorite horror movies.
If you would purr and roll over,
if you’d open your mouth to
show me the inside of your throat,
asking me to fill it.
Perhaps you’d be as vicious
as Blanche the cat,
but at least with your harness
I could keep you restrained
to my bedside in case
you tried to claw at my face.
The cat in the movie lead
seven girls to their doom,
and if I had the nerve to
come rub your stomach too,
I wonder what my fate
would have been as well.
Alex Carrigan (he/him) is a Pushcart-nominated editor, poet, and critic from Virginia. He is the author of “May All Our Pain Be Champagne: A Collection of Real Housewives Twitter Poetry” (Alien Buddha Press, 2022), and “Now Let’s Get Brunch: A Collection of RuPaul’s Drag Race Twitter Poetry” (Querencia Press, forthcoming 2023). 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 follow him on Twitter @carriganak.
