068 - March 08 2024 - The Cage

the invisible bars of this golden jail
test me immensely, they bore me without end
I can hear liberation’s soft, distant call,
but strain at the cage and the bars will not bend

I lack nothing; and indeed they say I’m free
to roam as I please, and consort as I suit
no guard’s pikes would lower, if I sought to flee,
but my base circumstance I could not permute

this is, by my birth, an unchangeable fact
the past, like a caravan, follows my path
howsoever we range, we find ourselves back
in a well-paced cell, doing time unto death