How frequently do I write about ache? A disgusting amount. Maybe because it sits in the cavern of my chest, sounding alongside my heart in a syncopated beat. In that way, it creates a constant buzz. I am achingly alive because of this.

Every time the sky becomes a cloudless expanse of reflected radiation, I lift my face and breathe in the ache of my childhood. There is no sky like a desolate Midwestern one. When I was a child, I asked my mother if the sky was all around us. Where did it end and t...