I Can't Keep it Down

I can’t keep it down.

For most it is instinctive – healthy even

That they take what they are given

Consume without sound.

They have learnt the art of quiet

Keeping one foot on the ground

Whilst the mind departs.

Whilst time

Thrashing against the mesh of my face

Hurts, half

Unravelled with my pen angle.

The rehearsal of marriage

For the achingly singular

I sit and watch blots and mucus and threads

And think – am I a participant

Or is this death?

Is this the difference between art

And the exhibition?

Feeling a physical outpouring

Over and over

Yet the meaning unknown

And the door in the mirror.