A Shade Softer

by Nicolle Elizabeth

At night I get made love to by a ghost. I go outside to where he's buried and I stand leaning on his headstone and I wait. He materializes generally around twelve o'clock when I'm starting to think it's cold, and that this will be that night I've been spending my life living waiting for. Like it's the night he'll stop showing up. He breathes into my hair and we close our eyes under my skirt, dancing in the moonlight. He breathes cold onto my neck and I tell him that I love him even though I cannot hold his face. The wind blows and trees howl and tonight, into dawn, something is different. I turn around and I say, "What?" "Nic," he says, "You gotta let me go."

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