Pennies Well Spent

simple gestures taste our flesh.
the fickle grammar of anticipation
tallies the coins we've thrown into the well.

a grief carefully spent
on spoiled meat and fractured bones.
continues telling its stories to the cinders of consent.

the voice is a kingdom. the mind is its war.
time paces under our skin.
both narrator and protagonist.

we grip the curtain.
with broken fingers. 
devastated to discover the illusion.

shallow cuts barely bleed.
tender words fail as bandages. 
until everything is stained in red.