Tepid is tepid,
sitting in the middle seat,
neither hot with ambition
nor cold with retreat.

It does not blaze.
It does not freeze.
It shrugs politely
and says, “I’m… these.”

But then comes the scholar of steam,
measuring margins with a ruler and a dream:

Is it slightly tepid?
Just brushing the border of warm?
Is it very tepid?
Committing no thermal harm?

Does “very tepid” rise up bold
and defect to the nation of Warm?
Or does it cling to its moderate throne,
refusing all upgrade reform?

And what of “not tepid at all”?
Is that heat with a mission?
Or chill with conviction?
Or simply a temperature
with better ambition?

At what exact trembling degree
does tepid surrender its name?
At 111? 112?
Is 113 playing a dangerous game?

We summon thermometers,
draft charts,
draw borders across the scale—

But language laughs
at our careful parts
and fogs up the glass without fail.

For tepid is not a number.
It’s a disappointment in disguise.
It’s tea that never quite wakes you,
a speech that never quite flies.

So measure it, weigh it,
debate it in court—
declare it unfit or fit.

In the end, tepid remains what it is:
Not enough heat
to commit.