I am mean
You see the scowl on my face and you know
You assume what’s on the outside matches the inside
That my eyes are those matches that can start a forest fire
Because everything is easy to understand when you skim
But there are no cliff notes for me and my emotions
The cliffs are the crinkles in my face that distort what you thought you knew
The cliffs of conclusions that you jump to for fun
It’s your favorite hobby

I am hazard
Unpredictable and unreadable
You assume what my shell shows
You ignore what my heart knows
Don’t get too close, you might see my reasons
Don’t look into my eyes, you might see the smoke
That covers the horizon
Marking the yellow sun as caution tape
Marking my smile as a half-moon that hangs too low 
A moon that brings out the darkness in everything
A moon with craters too deep to fit your mold 

I am why
Why smile or laugh when you don’t really mean it
Because then your expressions will be as empty as your words
Your face as blank as your mind
Your projection washed white like your sparkling soul
That knows no pain
No relation to the black waves with foam of glass
Scraping from the inside out with every tide
Glass shards from the broken bottles of your wishes
That you sent out to the sea, to your loved ones, to your lost ones
To yourself

I am mean
But not the mean that is angry, that is supposedly masking the hurt
I am the mean that is
Positively, painfully, permanently
Average
The mean that is everything, good and bad, added up
And then divided like my lips
Which expose my teeth that crack from the lies they are so used to shooting out
My teeth that chip away every time they are used
To prove that nothing is wrong

I mean
Nothing is wrong