peeled back, there exists only layers

brimming with retreats and sacred spaces
porous: life breath contained within
savory, sweet, and saccharine
make-up, latticed shit-luck aces
a tartan of a gambler, 
we've got memories of glass and amber
stretched too thin and relived daily renamed the trauma
pulverized to make for fuel; you ran when she first called you mama.

so secretly alone in a labyrinth built between us
out of sticks and stones, broken bones, the words we never said could hurt us, filled instead with needles. 
Syringes filled with ribbon red pneumonia.

Filling you, filling me

every day just a minute short of any other
selling sheets to buy another
giving fifty and getting close to never
we're bulletproof
we'll just run forever.
won't we?