that sleeping through the day was healthy.

From 10PM until 8AM, my job is to walk

the hallways where the girls sleep and shine

a tiny flashlight as softly as possible

into each bunk every twenty minutes,

all night long. It is an invasion of privacy

I can only stomach when recalling

the kindness of the social worker’s eyes

when she walked me through my training.

Many of these girls are not wanted

by their families, and there are few things

that make it harder to want to stay alive,

she said, removing an item I had never

considered someone could hurt

themselves with from a girl’s closet.

It was only one item on a long list

of things I am being paid to memorize

and will spend the years ahead of me

trying to forget. The more I know the girls,

the harder the job becomes.

Bracing for the blood of a stranger

is one hell, but the terror is multiplied

by my every bitten nail when that stranger

is a girl who has told me all her life’s stories

except for the one I heard in the staff meeting

and could not believe any human could live through.

For years to come, nothing will have the potential

to devastate me more than listening to a child try

to make her life sound easier than it is.

A month into the job, I can’t look at any of the girls

without seeing my baby sister’s face

the first time someone hurt her on purpose.

It wasn’t my sister’s grief so much as her shock

that stuck with me. None of these girls

are shocked by the hurt that hunts them—

they expect the blade of this life

to keep cutting and ask it to whittle

them into someone too sharp to touch.

I’ve never in my life known a relief

like the one that finds me the instant their alarms

start screaming in the morning. It’s the sound

of teenagers having lived through the night.

I make a pot of coffee and listen to them punch

their snooze buttons until they file into the office

to sign out pink razors, one at a time. Jenny

is always up first. My job is to stand outside

the closed bathroom door and request

a voice check-in every two minutes.

She would hate me for this if how much I despise

doing it was any less clear. Showers are for peace,

not for being reminded you can’t be trusted

not to bury yourself in six feet of dirt

while getting yourself clean. I’ve had many jobs

before this one and will have many after, but this

is where I learn one of the most vital lessons:

if your own story is one you aren’t sure

you can survive, remove whatever sharpness

you can from another person’s life.

Two minutes have passed.

Jenny, check in with me, I say, checking

my watch outside the bathroom door.

Whatever song she was singing

went silent, and all I can hear