The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Language of the Wound is Love by Megha Sood

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Jacob Jardel, is from Language of a Wound is Love by Megha Sood (FlowerSong Press 2025).

Deciphering the Madness

I ask the night, feverishly
as it rests on the caliginous back of time
like a thick rope going through
the wide-open mouth of a blind wall
rubbing against it, leaving marks on its existence.

Like a divine mark on the forehead
after kneeling before exalted Gods
countless times.

I ask myself.

Is it ever going to be alright again?

Thinking, as I take a second glance
at the empty streets of my house
longing for the clickety-clack of footsteps
warming its thick cobbled skin.

There is a method to this madness
that I used to discover—
every morning looking outside my window
counting hurried whispers of crowds
as they move towards the station like a mass exodus.

Now I long for those sights I normally abhorred
the state of normalcy of what it was before
as the light sheepishly makes its way
through thin wooden slats of my bedroom window.

Is it ever going to be alright again?

The pinging sound of the garbage truck
backing up in an alley,
soft paws scratching as they dig through dirt
in the almost bald spot of the park
joggers clad in sweaty bodies
heaving to take in another sliver of breath.

Is it ever going to be alright again?

I look at tiny finches weaving a nest in the oak
tree outside my apartment,
as they decipher this reigning madness
carefree weaving home for their future self.

I say to myself,
It is indeed going to be alright again.

Megha Sood (she/her) is an award-winning Asian-American author, poet, editor, and literary activist from New Jersey. She is Literary Partner with “Life in Quarantine” at Stanford University. Her works have been supported by the National League of American Pen Women, VONA, Kundiman, Dodge Foundation, Pen Women, and Martha’s Vineyard Creative Writing Institute. Her four poetry collections include the award-winning My Body Lives Like a Threat (FlowerSong Press, 2022), My Body is not an Apology (Finishing Lines Press, 2021), Language of the Wound is Love (FlowerSong Press, 2025). She was recently inducted as an honored listee for the 125-year-old Marquis Who’s Who. A 2020 National Level Winner for the Poetry Matters Project, and a Four-Time State Level Winner for the NAMI NJ Dara Axelrod Poetry Award, Megha is a member of National League of American Pen Women (NLAPW), The Artists Forum (USA), ArtPride (NJ), and United Nations Association-US Chapter. She has also been chosen as a featured poet for the 2024 Dodge Poetry Festival. Her widely anthologized poems, essays, and other works discuss her experience as a first-generation immigrant and woman of color. Her 900++ works have been widely featured in print, online journals, public exhibits, and anthologies. Her co-edited anthology The Medusa Project and other works have been selected to be sent to the moon in 2025 as part of the historical LunarCodex Project in collaboration with NASA. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and her 14-year-old son. Find her at https://linktr.ee/meghasood.

Jacob Jardel (he/they) is a CHamoru writer, scholar, and educator born in Guåhan (Guam), raised in California and Oklahoma, and currently based in Kansas City. He’s currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Humanities with a focus in English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. A former Editor for The Sosland Journal and The Central Dissent, his work has appeared in The 580 Mixtapes Vol. 1, Fanachu’s Voices of the Diaspora zine, and No. 1 Magazine. He is also a member of the Garden Party Collective, through which he published his poetry chapbook Full-Blooded CHamaole in 2024. Online, Jacob lives at his website itsjacobj.com, on Instagram and Threads @itsjacobj, and sometimes on BlueSky @itsjacobj.bsky.social. Offline, he lives with his partner, his cat, and his ever-growing board game and Magic the Gathering collection.