The garden grows without planting, pathways folding like old paper.
Grass hums.
Flowers bloom upside-down.
Trees root in air.
A whisper brushes past — a laugh with no owner.
It disappears in your hair.
Water drips backward.
Regret ripples upward.
A frog croaks wrong; a bird hums worse.
Statues of never-things raise accusing hands.
I nod.
They ignore me.
Mirrors grow on vines.
Some show nothing, some too much.
One shows my shadow having tea with my cough.
Letters litter the paths — burned, soaked, folding themselves into insects, whispering scraps of prayers.
A backward cat drags a ribbon of almost-hope.
I step over it.
A gate that’s always been open creaks.
Smells of dust and apology.
Nothing waits beyond it — nothing ever has.
Shadows debate sunlight and wind, then collapse into silence.
A puddle reflects a sky that never lived.
It hums, refusing my gaze.
A bench holds memories not mine.
It sighs when I sit.
I don’t.
A swing moves slowly, carrying a maybe-child.
Ink hangs in the air.
Roses with teeth murmur secrets, bite my hand.
I wear one anyway.
It apologizes.
Wind folds itself into corners.
Voices hide inside.
A stone hums: “Keeping score?”
I don’t answer.
It shrugs.
A letter becomes a bird and joins a tree full of unread mail.
Laughter drifts faintly through hedges, plotting something polite.
The path curls into itself like a forgotten song.
I hum along.
The wind claps.
Water runs backward again.
Shadows fold into cranes, rising toward nothing.
A statue smiles — maybe always did.
Maybe learned.
Leaves fall upward.
Soil hums.
Flowers gossip.
A door appears.
Always open, always empty.
Or maybe full of what I can’t see.
I sit again.
The roses whisper.
Wind hides.
Echoes fold.
The path curves.
The garden hums — folding, stretching, waiting.
For no one.
For everyone.
For itself.
