By Monica Meneghetti
I extend these words like wings to brush all the anxious places. May their motion across page create updraft to help you soar. If altars are where the divine rests, then this paper is holy, these words, reclining deities of ink. The ache inside—I know it dwells in you, too—like a bruise or a bell, crying out at the slightest impact. The tremor in guts and the clench of jaw resound. Oh may our aches be brushed only by feathers and raise a resonant hush, making all the ache airier—as heavy, as afloat as clouds.
Monica Meneghetti is an unsettled settler on the traditional lands of the Klahoose, Tla’amin & Homalco Nations aka Cortes Island, Canada. Her memoir, What the Mouth Wants was a Bi Book Award winner and Lambda Literary Award finalist. Her personal essay, “Scars” was included in the 2024 release Here & Now: An Anthology of Queer Italian-Canadian Writing, Volume 2. Contact: @authormon.bsky.social.