My chair is on an angle and my gaze is directed at a woman my age. Her eyes always glossy, on the verge of years (tears), her conscience revealed through this edged expression of laughing.
I receive verbal nuggets demarcated on the printed form. Today is the today for my over-glorified report card. What is written down is about my work self, not about my poet self, my friend self, my comrade self, my daughter self, my fuck self. There is an issue raised about my work self’s performance: I am very intelligent and yet require everything in writing. I have been singled out to be the only work self who performs in such a way, who requests clarity in writing. It is not merely that I am such an avid reader who requires everything, to have it, in writing, it’s also for the avid readers of the future, for the historical records of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
I continue on with my gaze, saying nothing, processing the information provided to me: very intelligent, uncertainty about what I know, asking questions. I am apparently the only one with this problem of intelligence and lack of understanding the parameters of my work and the values of the organization for which I work. Now, I would surmise that the very act of asking questions is the sign of intelligence and an indicator of a desire to learn. To position these two attributes as somehow contradictory is the contradiction in and of itself. To not ask questions, and frankly I don’t think I ask enough questions, suggests I already know, I am a master of my knowing, there is nothing more to know. This is a kind of fascism of the mind, enforcing an institutional narrowing of thought and of ideation, whittling the pathway to stepping stones and then to nothing left to leap on but off this logic plain entirely.
These are thoughts my work self cannot share openly and so I will often share them later in writing, which is what I am doing now as my poet self, as I don’t have access to my work self’s email, nor do I want such access, nor do I want my poet self to co-exist in that hell shaped inbox as much as it does already.