The Tongues of Ghosts

I’m almost fourteen years old when the ghost wakes me for the second night in a row.A cold breath at my chin, a lapping of something that should be wet, leaving my skin hollow. I swat it, but the licking persists, my fingers finding soggy poundcake crumbs left on my chin from the slice I stole after my parents went to bed. The one Mom refused to eat. The one I regretted eating.Half my chin is licked clean of crumbs. The skinlike ice.✱In the morning, I hover at the refrigerator reading the weight loss chart Mom recently attached to the door.Motivation, she had said.The treadmill whirrs in the basement along with the near shouting volume of the morning news.I open the fridge, rifle through bottles of fluorescent drinks boldly labeled Fat Burning Water!, push aside the skim milk and Diet Coke to find the fat-free cream cheese for my bagel. As I eat, the tongue returns, licking the cream cheese on the bagel-half waiting on my plate. A long white thing flicking in and out of…