afterglow lullaby

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

So the bloom began to pare the ledgers into three-breath prayers, each entry a small sky pocketed moon emptied river holds a child's name until morning opens its palm origami church bows

The bloom threaded receipts into a litany, columns folding like hymnals and ink rising into voice Invoices chanted storms paid in thunder; the moon's emptied pocket tinkled with small forgiving coins He watched as debits softened into refrains; names once stamped returned as swellings of mercy Paper prayed itself blank; the origami church nodded and opened a choir of creases that let borders unsew

Ledgers lift their spines and march, ink-braids knotting the wind into banners Receipts peel like skins, scrawling manifestos of unpaid kindness across the low cloud The origami choir unfolds into flags; the moon's pocket unbuttons and scatters lullabies like confetti He watches, palm warm with the stubborn bloom, while paper stops praying and chooses its own kingdom

Ledgers unbuttoned their spines and clipped themselves into ticket booths, each stub an invitation to misrule the dusk Invoices learned sleight of hand, flinging penalties as confetti and baring small mercies like trick coins that danced away The origami choir traded canticles for carnival masks; the moon's emptied pocket coughed up bellcoin and spun-sugar promises He laughed; the bloom marshaleda

They swapped satin for armor: top hats into helmets, tap shoes became a regiment's drum, Footlights flashed semaphore; cue cards uncapped manifestos and the pit orchestra snorted satire into sabers, Clowns unstitched sorrow and threw confetti like grapeshot; the calliope hiccupped rebellion and every pratfall turned parade, He, in borrowed tails, flung the stubborn bloom like a pennant — the house

The hullabaloo eased; confetti sank like forgiven coins into the velvet of the avenue He pocketed the pennant-bloom; it sighed a post-sheen cradle-song that braided the city's ragged edges shut Paper banners unthreaded themselves into quiet seeds, each invoice laying down as a returned name and a small mercy The Monkey King tipped his borrowed tails to the dark, the house folded away, and the bud,