“The lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them.”
The Odyssey Book IX

Promises, she heard them all,
the call of her mother’s voice,
she wanted to believe:
This won’t happen again, baby.
Maybe, it was okay to trust
for a while, and rise, like a lotus blossom,
above the mud of her addiction,
floating with petals stretched up to the sun.
Somewhere, she thought,
there is a story of a girl whose love could cure,
and pour itself out as an ethereal blanket,
so magical, together at last,
even their bones would long
to float away in the lotus’ song.