We wear them—
creased from grocery bags,
ink still bleeding from last week’s receipts,
edges soft where rain kissed them.
Paper crowns:
they tear at the temple,
collapse with a yawn,
and yet—
we bow as if they were wrought in iron.
Children fold them with gluey fingers,
declare themselves kings of couches,
rulers of hallways lined with shoes.
Grown men staple their debts into circlets,
pretend the weight is gold.
What is a crown but a fragile promise,
a flimsy cutout of permanence,
balanced on skulls that crack just the same?
Still—
we wear them.
Because somewhere in the ashtray of history,
someone believed in kingdoms made of paper,
and the rest of us
never stopped pretending.