Our Own Gilded Cage
We spend a lifetime feathering our nestslayering it with comforts and warmth,selecting the perfect coloursall set-off with the hum of the technology the modern world demands.We build this sanctuary only to pay handsomely to leave it,because an algorithm suggests it's what we'd like.It knows our ageand that we are comfortable in lifeand thinks we could afford it - but it doesn't know us.It feeds us a dream we don't wantof clear blue waters an idealistic, remote and off-grid log cabin,a detox - like the world we've carefully curated is now a mill-stone 'round our necks"Get away from it all," is the message - but is this not our nest,our worldthe very air we have chosen to breathe?What bizarre luxury we have,to find our own successdeemed to be inappropriate,claustrophobic,even insufficient!Some - those living out on the streetsthe ones failing to even find a nights sleeplucky to find an uncomfortable sofa a friend of a friend of a friend those with nothing to escape fromthose with only their rucksack and a list of failing optionsthey aren't looking for a dreamy horizon - more just the four walls we - the fortunate ones are told we are so desperate to flee from!Maybe this exit is thrown at usbecause they know we’ve forgotten how to inhabitthe prison we have created for ourselves.Perhaps the "away" we crave isn't a coordinate, a location,nor a perfect sunny coastline,more a break from thinking - the restless mind that builds a world high in the cloudsthen diesstarved; due to its lack of oxygen - the beautiful reality it finally won,killing it!We just might be the architects of our own gilded cage - one that follows us wherever we go.