After the Open Mic

I just sat down and started five poems,
gazing back at their half-empty spaces
aching to be filled - wondering if I'll
be back to give them more of myself
and my words.
It's like a sickness, really,
an illness that won't go away,
but that shows itself at all the most
impossibly awkward moments.
It's like the moment you first meet
your in-laws, and they ask you how
you like the food, and you vomit it up
in front of them, or the time you're making
love to the one you know is your soulmate
and someone else's name escapes your lips.
I suppose it would be like that.
Those are not experiences I've had,
but I can imagine they're rather like my own,
carrying my journal like a barf-bag,
or my pen, my epinephrine,
to catch, to stave off, to push back, to give in,
to cradle, to hold all of the loose and bile-soaked
drippings the dribble from my proverbial mouth
and trickle down my arm into the puddles
of letters I'll scoot together and chase around
on the white space of these pages,
excusing myself from society
to lock myself in the toilet for hours while I try
to get it all out and wipe the dirt from my face
and heart, hammering my head against
my words to piece myself together inside them,
tracing and retracing my past and all my
loaded thoughts, while my present and my future
sit out on the sofa, waiting for me to emerge
and interact with them again, perhaps to
down another couple drinks until
I can't keep those down, either,
and the cycle begins again,
and I ask my future on the way,
rushing back to the bathroom to spill even more,
to finish these five poems before another wave will hit,
if this is hell, or if there is an end to this,
the constantly asking questions on these pages,
and he looks at me, caressing with his eyes,
and says, my darling, 
you're immortal now.