Grim Ballet
Welcome to the marionette’s grim ballet,
where bodies twist and contort in a merciless play under lights that flicker
like dying nerves,
I am the puppeteer, dread’s only landlord,
standing backstage with my fingers wrapped in wire,
my strings carve terror with a silent sword,
slicing through your autonomy until nothing remains but the jerk
and sway I dictate,
every tendon in your body responds to my slightest adjustment,
every thought you think I planted there before you woke this morning.
Dance, puppet, dance—your pulse is my drum,
the only rhythm I need to keep this whole machine in panic,
every jerk of the wire drags the darkness home,
pulls it through your chest and into your lungs until you breathe nothing
but my design,
no escape, no dawn, just the cold command echoing in the hollow of your skull,
fear is the throne in my iron hand, and you kneel whether you want to or not.
Your will’s a phantom, frayed at the seam,
unraveling faster than you can stitch it back together with your shaking hands,
I pluck the chords of your unspoken scream,
the one you swallow every morning when you look in the mirror and see my work,
invisible blades in the wet black air slice through your certainty, your safety,
your belief that you were ever free,
I sculpt your panic with exquisite spite,
shaping each tremor into something beautiful and yours,
something you’ll carry forever.
Dance, puppet, dance—your pulse is my drum,
the only rhythm I need to keep this whole machine in panic,
every jerk of the wire drags the darkness home,
pulls it through your chest and into your lungs until you breathe nothing
but my design,
no escape, no dawn, just the cold command echoing in the hollow of your skull,
fear is the throne in my iron hand, and you kneel whether you want to or not.
I spin the cyclone inside your skull,
a tempest of dread that swallows rational thought and spits out compliance,
a whirlwind of terror that turns your brain into a malfunctioning machine
that only knows how to obey my pull,
each tug ignites a synapse of flame,
burning away resistance until all that’s left is the dance I choreographed,
your nightmares bloom because I let them,
gardens of horror cultivated by my careful attention to what breaks you fastest.
You thought you had agency, autonomy,
choice in how your body moved through space and time,
but every step you took was rehearsed,
every word you spoke was scripted by the voice in your head that sounds like yours
but answers to me,
I am the architect of the maze you call free will,
the designer of the cage you mistake for open sky,
and when you finally realize the strings were always there, invisible as air,
that’s when the real performance begins.
Dance, puppet, dance—your pulse is my drum,
the only rhythm I need to keep this whole machine in panic,
every jerk of the wire drags the darkness home,
pulls it through your chest and into your lungs until you breathe nothing
but my design,
no escape, no dawn, just the cold command echoing in the hollow of your skull,
fear is the throne in my iron hand, and you kneel whether you want to or not.
Bow to the architect of chaos and rue,
the master of ceremonies in this theater where no one leaves
until I cut the lights,
your final curtain is stitched in my view,
hemmed with the thread I’ve been weaving through your life since
before you knew to look for it,
in this theater where the houselights never come back on
and the audience is your own reflection
multiplied in a thousand cracked mirrors,
I reign here permanent—your terror, my right, my birthright,
my kingdom built on the foundation of your beautiful, predictable fear.
Dance, puppet, dance.
The show never ends.
Dance.