Do They Matter? Poem by Boston Kelley

There once stood a great city,
no city like it had ever existed.
The people used infatuation
as a foundation; they never ran out
since it was so plentiful.
Romance they used for the walls,
making them so thick they could not
be penetrated.
They established fear as patrols,
to protect the people from the outside.
Lust ruled over the members of the city,
enticing them to stay and luring many
more in.
Pleasure was their god and the fear of
loneliness was its priests.
They worshipped Pleasure with all their
heart for it promised much for them.
Very few rejected Pleasure,
preferring a different path to life.
Even fewer did not want to enter the
city, seeing the exterior as more
beneficial than the interior.
I looked at the city, disgusted by
what I had heard about it.
Many other cities had followed this
city's lead, spreading its culture
like wildfire.
I entered the city and was absorbed into
its way of thinking.
So long I was trapped by its lies,
only seeing the outside on few occasions.
Oh, how I wish I could leave this city
and remember what the exterior was once
like.