Introduction

• Ache is lodged here. When the sleeplessness continues to blot the room’s sheets, walls, windows, my ache is held in my limbs, ribs, lips. 

• Something in me must’ve ached to be here, something in me has wanted to breathe despite the ache. 

• I’m studying to become familiar with ache, discomfort, hurt. “What may be causing the pain?”, “Are you tender in these parts, in these places I’m touching?” I’m cataloging, archiving people’s agony. I’m learning the language of enduring. 

• The ache began in middle school. Puberty made me throb in the chest, thighs, teeth, voice. Each day clocked in with another element of an uncanny body puzzle. I was living in an island of skin made for other people, other girls, other faces, other colors. The sting carried through the years, wordlessly swimming into high school, graduation, university, turning 20, turning blue. I'm an adult purpled with soreness. 

• Welcome to the ache. Here, all sorts of afflictions belong. Here, you and I belong.