Peter keeps the ledger.
Neat columns. Dates aligned.
“Paid,” he writes, in pencil,
because ink would be a lie.
The money is always coming.
Next week. After clearance.
Once accounts reconcile
with a future that never arrives.
Paul waits on the other side
of the same thin wall.
Different excuse. Same echo.
Funds delayed. Circumstances. Process.
Peter was told Paul had the cash.
Paul was told Peter spent it.
Between them, a corridor of promises
swept nightly, never furnished.
They do not argue anymore.
There is nothing left to dispute.
Only the quiet competence
of being unpaid in turns.
Somewhere, the system hums—
healthy, audited, congratulated—
while Peter balances nothing,
and Paul remains, impeccably, broke.
Verbal Alchemy 