Entrapment

The city lights are tempting–each theater and store,
but when my outer life is rich, my inner life’s a bore.
Do I want to create my life or should it create me?
And which is which?  I do not know. Which helps me most to be?
I guess I need a balance, but each choice is a trap.
While I think it over, perhaps I’ll have a nap.
Sometimes the truth is found in dreams. Perhaps that will work now.
But once the “what” occurs to me, I’ll have to dream the “how.”
I dream empty buildings and abandoned avenues,
stores filled with pretty dresses, refrigerators, shoes.
Wind through broken windows and grass through broken walks.
All those empty radios where no one ever talks.
While somewhere in the country, away from smog and fumes
those busy cities of the past are sealed away in rooms
writing morning pages and playing with their dogs,
recording things they used to do in their daily blogs.
If I don’t join the city, if I choose to be free,
perhaps the busy city will choose to come join me!

I don’t recall who sent me this podcast, or how. Could it be AI? If you’d like you can listen to it here:

(Please let me know if this podcast link doesn’t work. I’ve been wrestling with it for hours now!)