Any recommendations on what to do?
Try XML::Rules, something like

#!/usr/bin/perl -- 

use strict;
use warnings;

use XML::Rules;

my $xml = q~<root>
<entry> this is the text I would like to parse</entry>
<entry>more text
   <secondentry>interesting text</secondentry>
</entry>
</root>~;

my $parser = XML::Rules->new(
    stripspaces => 7,
    rules => {
        entry => sub {
            my ($tag, $atts) = @_;
            print $atts->{_content},"\n";
            return;
        },
    },
);

$parser->parse($xml);


__END__
 this is the text I would like to parse
more text
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