I learned how to use a ruler in kindergarten–
to place an object near its edge, aligning one side of the object with the end
of the ruler and measuring how far it was to the opposite side  

This measurement, I was told, was called the “diameter” or the “length”
I was told this measurement was the best way to truly
understand how wide or long the thing was  

For a brief time, I was fascinated by rulers and protractors and tape measures

For a while, I thought I had learned something important and meaningful.  

But, you see, it was all lies
I was being conditioned to look at something real and pretend
I could define it in some way, with a made-up measurement scale,
created by humans who took great satisfaction
in pretending something real and complex
could be condensed into what their measurements
claimed the thing to be  

Humans love boxes,
especially the invisible ones,
in which they can obscure the actual reality
of a thing with made up words and numbers,
as if any of this was anything more
than a fraudulent attempt to
turn nature herself into
what man said she was