Marianne LaValle Vincent

Genie in a Bottle

I am sometimes caught in the darkness
A victim of my own self-destruction
Wandering from corner to corner
Searching for nothing yet
Finding what I fear
It waits for me behind my thoughts
And surfaces near daylight
Pulling at my sanity and tempting my
Addiction
Pitiful coward that I am
Its bitterness warms me with ice-laden
Memories as I struggle to stay above the black
Fog that makes my house never a home
Begging me drink the witches brew
Promising strength and intellect
With sip after sip
Again and again I am its fool
Pretending worthiness of the undeserved
Accolades
As I swim in the burn of its essence
Drowning in its pretense
Welcoming the numb that it brings
Believing in a dream instead of my nightmare
And I find no comfort knowing I am in control
My destiny fated by my own choices
For as I try to climb out from the recurring chimera
It pulls me to its nucleus holding me captive
And I am not ready to free myself
My fears still overwhelm
Yet I become a hero—a star
When I finally land
On the bottom of the bottle

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