the mean

Almost indistinguishable,
like the difference between
snow and sleet,
or the me from yesterday
and the me from today.
Is stagnancy so boring
to revel in the mirror-solid
surface of an undisturbed pond?

But I wear self-induced ripples,
blooming outward like
an atom bomb after it hits.
They leave a mushroom
cloud of dark reminders:
“This is what I did,
and this is what you get.”

And you skip stones across my back,
leave no scars,
just ripples, ripples
--Where you hit, the epicenter:
“This is what I did,
and this is what you get.”

I hear the flat stones in your pockets
jostle against each other
like the thoughts arguing
for more room in my brain.
And I know you’re planning something,
and you know I’m thinking something,
but you’ll never hear what.

--Believe me;
it’s somewhere between
snow and sleet,
me and Me,
a pebble and a bomb.

And I might as well be
the hyphen between
the year of your birth
and the year of your death.