from a musty binder labeled “things he thought about in the shower on weird sundays”
In elementary school there were two basic things that you did with paperwork
first one was to sign your name
second one was to read the instructions
sometimes the instructions included a reminder about the first thing
these were talking points for teachers, to remember the two things
and also just like bedrock cultural values for a society
largely communicated through paperwork
or paperwork equivalents
like talking or movies
at the time(s) and for quite a while after
i was nearly vain re my fluency with these commands
just not fucking up was a skill
but somewhere along this celestial railroad
i started to hover slightly above comprehension
studies show
we read shapes or zoom to guesswork in understanding
blahblah satisfying science that explains the human condition
i’m doing it right now
the instructions get more complicated they get whorled into a dough
then it gets baked and eaten
and digested and crapped
and scattered and clouded
trying to blame the world for my problem here again
anyway what my original starting point
in the shower today
was that i forgot to read instructions because they became invisible
and i am medium sure that was what was supposed to happen