version of compensation for her selfish abandonment of me. Her ghostly touch moved up to my rigid collar bone, tracing every area with a gentleness unmatched. Mirroring her taunting, trace of a remembered touch, I too, lifted my hands to my collarbone, scraping them into the skin, feeling the pleasure of the miserable sting. It was real to me. She confidently continued her touch around my neck, hands brushing the sensitive skins as I followed. My own claws
reached around my neck with little hesitation. Each whisper of her spectral touch sent me into a deeper spiral of darkness and caused me to add longing pressure around my neck. My fingers, my nails, sank into my skin, a violent action replaced the delicate one, so desperately needed. The room became dimmer as I felt my vision slowly dissipate. Blood trickled down from the punctures on each side of my neck as my frame slumped into the chair. The chair I had once sat so upright in.
By Mitzi Simpson
1 7
Art by Lucy Wood
