bottle's got your tongue

The imprecision of language
is a problem somewhat aptly 
demonstrated by the figure 
of the asshole genie. This 
mischievous to the point 
of malevolent imp, irked 
and resentful about this 
existence of its, made 
in long periods of 
incarceration punctuated
by being "set free" for a bit
of forced servitude, wants 
to make a point: language
matters, or: what if it did?

Do you think you can make it to
let alone past your second wish?
You will rue the innocent way
you word your desperate or fondest
desire, your dream-to-come true
in lakes of fire and bound tight
by hooked chains, in the wince
of each endless clinking link
you forged in tongue's too-hot
crucible, now spent forever
bitten and cracked and dry? All the worth of words
misspent forever now in one utterance
you were so proud of just then.
In just how you put

what you wished so much for.

For every interpretation is valid 

to the degree it can be supported
from with the text. And did you not
know? All genies were born (or
whatever) with advanced degrees
in semantics and its correct subversion.
It's 101 to them. Basic stuff, and a lesson 
to us all if we think: before we speak. 

The genie almost never plays unfair. 
The rules it lives don't allow for it. 
It's only a blunder on the tale-writer's
part when that happens. What we wished
so innocently, our very words - perverse
servants! - really did say just and justly
what came to 
pass. 

Pass.
I suggest. Or else,
bone up on semiotics!  construct
yourself a construct
so intent in painstaking
focus as if it were your own
life sentence you passed, 
like stone from gall. A construct
whose meaning and means lie
just-so. Already set in a fit
not merely literal, but clear
beyond possibility of all
but the most very lame
and transparently false
deconstruction. Which

no duty-bound genie 
would sink to. They don't. 
They admire such acuity 
tremendously, having it 
themselves in abundance -
but unaccustomed to humans 
so sage or shrewd. They give you 

just

what you want, then. Yes, grudgingly
- but with admiration ungrudged, 
unforced. Like a truly satisfying,
gratifying out-of-nowhere loss 
at chess. The lesser opponent 
pulls one out of the ass and 
scores! It's an austere vindication 

of the game itself: its worth. 
But it doesn't last, and 
you're up. Wish two. 

Do you think you can think 
that fast?