Micromanagement Machine

Rules expand

covering the walls and windows

A vine that eats

opportunity

until too many wear orange

for stepping out of line

and fear shoots its sticky red hands

down the hallway

trying to catch

the rest

by Christina Lynn Lambert

When questions arise about why something has to be the way that it is, answers like “well, it’s tradition, or that’s how it’s done because that’s how it’s always been done,” aren’t answers at all, just a lazy shrug and refusal to change.

Clinging to order in a world filled with chaos can feel like the only way to survive a storm, but what if the order being sought is a mirage in the desert?

What happens when rules that were intended to protect, expand without proper care or consideration? Rules and more rules emerge and ensnare. Video cameras arise in every possible space. People suffer under the overreaching lens of micromanagement. When authority figures over monitor and over punish, disaster strikes in the guise of a quest for order. Question everything, because the answers aren’t always truths, rather the answers given are often carefully crafted lies of laziness and ignorance.