Rub the wrong lamp
and get
the deeply messed-up genie.

He grants one wish with the stipulation
that you can only ask for a secret blessing.
No one can ever know you have it or you’ll die.

The request for the large penis
is right out the window, along the ones for good looks
and wealth and health and everlasting youth.

You think for a moment and choose the ability
to put into words exactly what you’re feeling
so you can understand it yourself.

You walk out the door of the store
not changed, except that people start calling you
“Nick Drake.”  Confused as to who that is,

you start writing and singing about the confusion —
again, mostly for yourself, but one day
people hear it and start to talk, and then you die

for a moment, and you come back
when they start calling you “Ian Curtis,”
and it happens again and they call you

“Kurt” something, and then “Elliott”
something, and another name
and another name

until you barely know what to think,
but you’re going to keep writing about it,
cursing that genie the whole time.