i'm 
suffering from
job  burn  out 
today.
the
pay
is shitty, the 
hours are unending
and i'm overworked since
these days every time i walk down 
the street there's a woman being hurt. later,
these women somehow get directions and show
up in my head, ringing the buzzer, crawling through 
the window when i don't answer and waiting in line 
to be written into a poem, for words to give them impermiable,
 permanent bodies. ___right now,____there are too many to count,
 hundreds, _maybe even thousands, _shuffling their feet, waiting
 in line, __their hands knotting and_ unknotting in their _laps,
 nursing their children, ___blowing their noses, ___waiting. why 
didn't _i _take_ that _job _writing _about _wild __strawberries
 and _ childhood like my _ mother wanted? _ there is another woman
 here, _ too, _ bound to me by genetics and memory. _ _ in another
 country, _ she hunts killers _ in_ women's blood and writes to me
 in light: _ after the diagnosis, what then? then the word neither
 of us can say. _ from different sides of the globe, we dig at the
 tight knots of history _ until our hands are raw and still we can
 not _ make _ unkill a word _ and all the women _ we can not save.
 there _ is _ always work. _ _ the women in my head_ are _ growing
 restless, pulling at the crime scenes of their bodies, wrestling
 with _ the_ police _ line _ tape _ that  binds them together like
 memory _ or genetics. _ i stick my fingers in my mouth and blow,
 a whistle so loud _ it is heard on pages_ five continents _ away.
 their searchlight eyes widen as i tell them: ladies, _ i have had
 enough._ today, we're going to do it differently. _ i'll tell you
 what. _ grab a beer from the fridge. _ turn on the radio too loud,
 open  the _ window _ and dance. _ inflate _ the _ body _ bags into
 balloons _ and set them free _ into the sky.__ put on a party hat.
 remember_ how _ to _ laugh _ until your throat hurts._ tell _ me a
 story that ends "and they lived happily ever after" _ because this
 is _ your _ poem_ and it's a party _ and nothing bad will happen to
 you here. when everything else has fallen apart, _ this will still
 stand; __ this is your memorial, _ your sanctuary, _ your legacy.
come on in. ________________________________________________________
                  stay forever.
welcome.