paper confession

A wild flower flickered in the Monkey King's palm—small as proof, loud as a crown He taught it tricks of wind and riddle-speech, to cart the dusk and tumble kingdoms down Its petals rewrote maps: veins as poems, each fold a compass that makes old borders frown So from that stubborn bloom a new legend grew, stitching history to song and earning its own renown

The bloom began to inventory the impossible: receipts for storms, a ledger of vanished streets and small apologies It listed a moon with pockets, a compass that read which childhood you'd be tomorrow, a church spattered in origami birds Rivers were filed under "waiting," mountains cataloged by the taste of their shadows, borders stamped with lullaby signatures The Monkey King watched the list sign

The ledger swelled into a directory of losses, each entry a bell sunk in tissue and paper, It named a dock that forgot nightly arguments, a bakery whose ovens cooled with someone's name, a bridge that grew mute, Petals folded over the margins like fingers pressing a pulse that refuses to stop, At each entry the bloom let fall the same quiet: we remember The Monkey King bowed his shadow to the page

Petals opened like small shutters; the bloom exhaled ember-names and the ovens remembered how to sing A ferry's line tugged the ledger and came ashore: a bell coughed its greeting, a rope found its old hand Marbles and matches, folded prayers and a single lost mitten slipped back into pockets and doorways as if forgiven The Monkey King cupped each return without trumpet—these were tiny recoveries,

The avenue answered—fire-escapes breathed like pipe organs, crosswalks ticking a metered psalm Neon sewed verses along shopfront glass; bus announcements folded into call-and-response with lamplight Steam from the bakery swelled the alto, taxi brakes kept a private snare, alleys lifted harmonies for mittens and folded prayers The Monkey King let the ledger riff in his palm, smiling as the city rew

Storefront tubes inhale and exhale in bell-phrases; their letters tilt into doxologies that varnish the air, Signboards wired like choirboys intone favors and old promises; crosswalks answer in refrains of chrome and hush, The bloom's petals hum filament-psalms, each glowing thread a syllable that stitches benediction to brick and wire, The Monkey King taps the ledger; electric hallelujahs thread—

The ledger unhinged itself—each leaf a trembling mouth, spitting loose apologies into the dusk Folded admissions unfolded like paper-tongues, naming tiny betrayals: a shared umbrella left, an unsung lullaby taken Ink crawled into the margins, knitting regrets into constellations that smelled faintly of rain and coal The Monkey King read them as benediction; streetlights bowed and hands returned tr