Surviving Plato's Cave

It's always the same...
this dream that opens up
before me, like the yellowed pages
of an old New York Times
and it won't let me go before
the last page is read and
the ending obituary wept over endlessly.
From outside, the house looks innocent enough.
Grand, even.
A President could live there, or
either of Trump's ex-wives.

Inside, the same dirty rooms
with the same perspiring paint
are lined, wall to wall, with plush dusty chairs
under a leaky roof and a foundation
that sags like an old lady's bottom.

I know, in every dream, that this house waits,
shaking and trembling,
to umbrella in on me, forcing
me to salvation in my secret hideaway,
my bomb shelter,
my Plato's cave,
watching the shadows move and
staring down the devil
until he finally casts away his eyes
in shame.