mon concierge

I used to feel so much shame about my magic wand. Shame? No, fear. I used to fear my magic wand. But why? Why should I fear such a thing that only moves when I permit it to? It does not slam my head into the concrete, nor does it tie my hands to the bottom of my walnut bedframe and scream at me to take it. I do not have to perform for him, to push him until he gives his children relief to fall and dance with the air, while I am left alone on my sheets in agonizing jealousy that he is never patient nor caring enough to allow me to feel such wonder. He treats me better than that. With my guidance, he will gently waltz through and in the curtains. There is no fuss when I need to take a break. The gasps he helps me to let out don’t always produce a frequency capable of bouncing amongst my four walls; but I am never punished for such silence, instead, I am rewarded with kind kisses and continued pleasurable breathlessness. The tears start to fall as I find myself approaching euphoria. In a split second, I find myself mimicking my mother when she is in prayer. I used to wonder how powerful God must be that he could make her scream of “yes”, “thank you” and “please” every Saturday. Then he brings me to utopia, and I scream out at the God that I have created and so kindly baptized me on my white sheets.

Naa Asheley Ashitey is a Chicago-born writer and MD–PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. A first-generation, low-income Ghanaian-American and University of Chicago alumna, she writes at the intersection of race, medicine, and belonging.

Her scientific research focuses on cancer immunology, with a particular interest in how factors within the tumor microenvironment influence the efficacy of immunotherapies such as CAR T cell and checkpoint inhibitor therapies. Her creative and editorial writing examines how policy, media, and academia reproduce structural violence—and what it means to resist with truth.

Her creative work appears or is forthcoming in Hobart, The Brussels Review, Michigan City Review of Books, AUTOCORRECT, Tyger Quarterly,  and editorials for The Xylom, MedPage Today and KevinMD. She has been nominated for multiple awards, including Best Small Fiction. More at NaaAshitey.com.
Twitter/Instagram: @foreverasheley
Bluesky: @foreverasheley.bsky.social