the sealed box of your head in poetry

to everyone else
you’re the rough average
of all your facets
all of your traits
all of the people you have to be
for your job
for your hobbies
for your parents
for your lover
when you’re in a bad mood
when you’re sick
when you’re being brutally honest in youtube comments
when you’re performing
when you’re in the shower
when you’re eating food that you don’t care for
when you were a kid
when you were drunk in college
when you’re half asleep
all of those people you’ve ever been
all the people you will ever have to be
you’re all those people put together and
then divided by infinity and
you’re counted as that

while you yourself
have to be one of those facets
at any given time
you’re the you for that context

the dissonance between the you
at any particular time and
the people you are on average
is quantum
like pinning down a subatomic particle
you can know exactly where you are and
not exactly your velocity
or the reverse
you are a cloud of your potentialities
close enough for horseshoes or hand-grenades
but never quite exactly the thing
other people think they see because
only you
know all of you

schrodinger’s life
there in the sealed box of your head
you and not you at once
instead of alive and dead
you and not you both
to everyone other than you