Dormant

Sometimes you are still swallowing words you never got to say

The whole scene is heavy,

Set in stone,

Looks dormant.

Curtains carved to seem like velvet,

Draped and ready to be drawn.

 

Centre stage you start to feel it, some incongruous warmth

Moves through your feet as you reject it,

Some deep repulsive force like lava

 

Oozes through in veins of granite,

Churning coals in fire pit stomach,

Tearing through oesophagus and halts-

 

You cannot choke it down, or breathe too hard with bellows breath.

Just stand in stone and have faith

In this heaviness.

 

Then you taste it, bitter hot

And know you have to choose.

Spit out those rancid coals and vowels

Or immolate your voice.

Teeth and tongue and lips and throat

Disintegrating black and grey, as ashes in your mouth.

 

Now smile and take a bow.

The audience is gone. Be dormant now.