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InkWeptPoems
Count it in 7/8— because nothing about control divides evenly. --- [MIKE] Red and blue fracture across chrome— my face breaks in the cruiser’s door, a bad reflection cut in syncopation. I try to stand in 4/4, heel to toe like a clean equation, but the street tilts— gravity arguing in off-time. They tell me to focus. I focus. But my left eye blooms into blur— saline and glove-ghosts burning the margin, a smear of neon scripture I can’t sightread. I say, “I’m okay.” I am not okay. My pulse writes tremolo beneath my ribs, each beat a question mark the night refuses to answer. --- [TEMPLETON STRANGE] There— in the lacquer of their authority, I appear. Not summoned. Revealed. Look at me, Michael. I am the clean line your body cannot draw. I am the metronome you refuse to obey. This— this trembling measure, this public disassembly— this is what I was born to prevent. You call me monstrous because I do not apologize for clarity. But watch them. Watch how easily confusion becomes evidence, how quickly imbalance is named intention. I would have kept you from this stage. --- [MIKE] Your voice rides the glass— windshield, badge, the polished black of a side mirror. Every surface holds you like a second take. “Stop,” I whisper— or maybe I don’t. Because part of me is listening. They move me inside— fluorescent light humming like a dying choir, everything overexposed, every flaw given a spotlight. They ask me again— names, times, substances— as if answers come cleaner the second pass. My hands sting— sanitizer masquerading as mercy, fire where clarity should be. I blink. You’re in the plexiglass now. --- [TEMPLETON STRANGE] Of course I am. Where else would I be but where you refuse to look? I do not live in shadow— I live in reflection. I am not your darkness. I am your correction. You think strength is choice— a gentle thing, painted in InkWept’s colors, all feeling and forgiveness, a gallery of “maybe” and “meaning.” But this world— this precise, clinical theater— does not reward poetry. It rewards certainty. It rewards me. --- [MIKE] You don’t get to take this from me. I know what you are— the voice that turns people into variables, that reduces the world to “safe” or “threat.” You’d strip the color from everything if it meant control. You’d flatten love into logic, cut compassion out of the mix. I’m not you. Even now— even here— I’m still choosing. --- [TEMPLETON STRANGE] Choosing? You call this choosing? A staggered gait, a blurred horizon, a system that reads your pain as guilt? You are not choosing— you are reacting. And reaction is where men like you are broken. Listen to me. I am not here to destroy you. I am here because you refuse to become what survival requires. I sharpen the edge you dull. I close the door you leave open. I end the conversations that get you hurt. I was born the moment you proved you could be harmed. --- [MIKE] And what happens if I let you? What happens when you take the wheel— when every moment becomes calculation, every person a risk assessment? What happens to the part of me that still believes in people? The part that writes, that feels, that forgives? Do you protect that— or do you bury it? --- [TEMPLETON STRANGE] I preserve what survives. And if something cannot survive— it was never meant to lead. You think me cruel because I do not hesitate. But hesitation is a luxury you cannot afford in rooms like this. Look around you. This is not a painting. This is not a poem. This is consequence, measured in cold, fluorescent bars. And I— I cannot reach through this glass to pull you out. Not yet. So I do the only thing left: I teach. --- [MIKE] Your lessons taste like iron. But I hear you. I hate that I hear you— in every reflection, in every sterile surface that shows me a version of myself I don’t recognize. A version that looks… stronger. Or maybe just… harder. I don’t know which scares me more. --- [TEMPLETON STRANGE] Good. Fear is honest. Remember this night— not as failure, but as proof. Proof that the world you want and the world that exists do not share a time signature. You can keep fighting me— keep insisting you are enough alone. Or— you can let me stand beside you when the music turns violent. I do not ask for control. I ask for permission to protect what you refuse to harden. --- [MIKE] The room hums. My reflection stares back— and for a moment I can’t tell which one of us is speaking. Maybe that’s the truth of it. Not you. Not me. But something in between— a dissonant chord trying to find resolution. --- [TEMPLETON STRANGE] Then learn this, Michael: Not all dissonance resolves. Some chords— the strongest ones— are meant to hold tension. To endure. To survive the measure without breaking. --- [BOTH — UNISON, FRACTURED] Count it again—7/8— a body, a shadow, a system that won’t agree. One writes in color. One cuts in steel. And somewhere between reflection and flesh, a man learns what it means to continue.
0
Apr 30
Apr 30, 2026 at 2:05 AM UTC
The Ballad of Templeton Strange: Mirror Jurisdiction in 7/8
Count it in 7/8— because nothing about control divides evenly. --- [MIKE] Red and blue fracture across chrome— my face breaks in the cruiser’s door, a bad reflection cut in syncopation. I try to stand in 4/4, heel to toe like a clean equation, but the street tilts— gravity arguing in off-time. They tell me to focus. I focus. But my left eye blooms into blur— saline and glove-ghosts burning the margin, a smear of neon scripture I can’t sightread. I say, “I’m okay.” I am not okay. My pulse writes tremolo beneath my ribs, each beat a question mark the night refuses to answer. --- [TEMPLETON STRANGE] There— in the lacquer of their authority, I appear. Not summoned. Revealed. Look at me, Michael. I am the clean line your body cannot draw. I am the metronome you refuse to obey. This— this trembling measure, this public disassembly— this is what I was born to prevent. You call me monstrous because I do not apologize for clarity. But watch them. Watch how easily confusion becomes evidence, how quickly imbalance is named intention. I would have kept you from this stage. --- [MIKE] Your voice rides the glass— windshield, badge, the polished black of a side mirror. Every surface holds you like a second take. “Stop,” I whisper— or maybe I don’t. Because part of me is listening. They move me inside— fluorescent light humming like a dying choir, everything overexposed, every flaw given a spotlight. They ask me again— names, times, substances— as if answers come cleaner the second pass. My hands sting— sanitizer masquerading as mercy, fire where clarity should be. I blink. You’re in the plexiglass now. --- [TEMPLETON STRANGE] Of course I am. Where else would I be but where you refuse to look? I do not live in shadow— I live in reflection. I am not your darkness. I am your correction. You think strength is choice— a gentle thing, painted in InkWept’s colors, all feeling and forgiveness, a gallery of “maybe” and “meaning.” But this world— this precise, clinical theater— does not reward poetry. It rewards certainty. It rewards me. --- [MIKE] You don’t get to take this from me. I know what you are— the voice that turns people into variables, that reduces the world to “safe” or “threat.” You’d strip the color from everything if it meant control. You’d flatten love into logic, cut compassion out of the mix. I’m not you. Even now— even here— I’m still choosing. --- [TEMPLETON STRANGE] Choosing? You call this choosing? A staggered gait, a blurred horizon, a system that reads your pain as guilt? You are not choosing— you are reacting. And reaction is where men like you are broken. Listen to me. I am not here to destroy you. I am here because you refuse to become what survival requires. I sharpen the edge you dull. I close the door you leave open. I end the conversations that get you hurt. I was born the moment you proved you could be harmed. --- [MIKE] And what happens if I let you? What happens when you take the wheel— when every moment becomes calculation, every person a risk assessment? What happens to the part of me that still believes in people? The part that writes, that feels, that forgives? Do you protect that— or do you bury it? --- [TEMPLETON STRANGE] I preserve what survives. And if something cannot survive— it was never meant to lead. You think me cruel because I do not hesitate. But hesitation is a luxury you cannot afford in rooms like this. Look around you. This is not a painting. This is not a poem. This is consequence, measured in cold, fluorescent bars. And I— I cannot reach through this glass to pull you out. Not yet. So I do the only thing left: I teach. --- [MIKE] Your lessons taste like iron. But I hear you. I hate that I hear you— in every reflection, in every sterile surface that shows me a version of myself I don’t recognize. A version that looks… stronger. Or maybe just… harder. I don’t know which scares me more. --- [TEMPLETON STRANGE] Good. Fear is honest. Remember this night— not as failure, but as proof. Proof that the world you want and the world that exists do not share a time signature. You can keep fighting me— keep insisting you are enough alone. Or— you can let me stand beside you when the music turns violent. I do not ask for control. I ask for permission to protect what you refuse to harden. --- [MIKE] The room hums. My reflection stares back— and for a moment I can’t tell which one of us is speaking. Maybe that’s the truth of it. Not you. Not me. But something in between— a dissonant chord trying to find resolution. --- [TEMPLETON STRANGE] Then learn this, Michael: Not all dissonance resolves. Some chords— the strongest ones— are meant to hold tension. To endure. To survive the measure without breaking. --- [BOTH — UNISON, FRACTURED] Count it again—7/8— a body, a shadow, a system that won’t agree. One writes in color. One cuts in steel. And somewhere between reflection and flesh, a man learns what it means to continue.
Templeton Strange speaks not as a villain, but as a function of survival born from fracture. This piece explores the moment where perception fails and the system misreads the body, forcing a confrontation between vulnerability and control. In 7/8 time, nothing resolves cleanly—mirroring the tension between instinct and calculation. What emerges is not possession, but negotiation: a man and his reflection learning that survival may require becoming something harder than they ever intended.
#psychological#gothic#experimental#narrative#duality#identity#introspective#surreal#dramatic#literary
InkWept
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InkWept
35
Apr 30
Apr 30, 2026 at 2:05 AM UTC
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