"Why is it that I feel so much closer to you when I'm here?" I whisper. To the wandering eye, it would seem I'm speaking to myself, but secretly I know she is listening.

For a while, nothing happens. I wait, eagerly tapping my aged Converse against the pebbled walkway. Dew dropped grass blows softly in the brisk morning wind, brushing harshly against my black jeans, bigger now than they used to be. I shiver in the cold, my teeth chattering as I fumble with the peeling skin around my fingernails, my hands hiding in the front pocket of my indigo sweatshirt that is two sizes too big for me now. It's a quick distraction, the only thing keeping me from going to that place, the place I must stay away from. I'm straddling the fine line between this world and the next. Except this world is a whirlwind of crippling pain and the next is a welcoming vacuum, trying to suck me away from the agony I'm feeling every second.

It's tempting to let that world draw me away, like the limp, inconsequential piece of trash I am. Who would care if I live or die?

I care, even though nobody else does. Except some days it seems impossible to keep caring, especially when you have nobody cheering you on.

Eventually, I can feel her presence in the air. It begins with the scent of her citrusy-sweet primrose perfume, my favorite since I was young. Then, I hear her. In the midst of the heavy winds blowing the already maple leaves across my feet, I pick up the sound of lilting whispers calling for me. I wait for her to quiet down. Soon she does, and that is how I know it won't be much longer before I see her. Moments later, her figure materializes before me. Her skin is ghostly white, stark like finely shaped porcelain. My father used to say she was carved by angels, sent down from heaven by accident.

That's why they took her back so soon. They grew jealous. They wanted her back almost as quickly as they gave her away.

Fuck them.

They can have her, as long as they live with the guilt of prying her away from her own family - her own son, who needed his mom. Who still needs his mom, now more than ever.

They had to watch me suffer. They had to watch me call for her night after night, begging her to appear at my windowsill. A silly request, but when you're all alone, you start to wish for miracles. My father seemed indifferent, barely spoke a word. I'm sure he heard my cries, I'm sure the whole world heard them. Yet he stayed in bed, wishing she was there beside him. Some days he probably even saw her there, too high to recognize the fantasy of it all. The other world had already sucked him in, like a black hole, drowning him in wispy clouds and lucid dreams. I have seen the stars in his eyes and the gnarled fumble in his step. He's the mere shell of a man, traipsing through life with barely anything keeping him tethered to the ground.

Suddenly the whispers clamor, reminding me of her presence.

I first notice her hands. They are folded gently in front of her gorgeous white wedding gown, which flows gracefully down to the ground, farther than her toes, as she sits, perched gracefully on her tombstone. Her frizzy black hair falls down to her chest, curling in raven ribbons. She looks so beautiful like this, glowing and radiant as always. At times, she blends in with the fog. Sometimes I think they are one and the same, wanderers roaming the confinements of this dreary cemetery, floating rhythmically in the nervous inky black night.

"Maybe it's because this is the only place you can see me, my darling," she answers, her voice soothing as always. She sounds so peaceful, so calm. It angers me to hear her this tranquil. How can a dead person be so calm?

How can a dead person talk to a living one?

I look down at the ground, smiling at the blushing carnations which lay lifelessly in front of her tombstone. I always bring them for her – they are her favorite. She constantly reminded me that pink carnations symbolized a mother's love. They could fix any issue, solve any problem. They represented hope in the most hopeless times. My mom's favorite flowers were pink carnations, and her favorite thing in this world was raising me. When she first started visiting me like this, I would try and hand them to her. She would laugh at my ignorance, kindly reminding me that she could not touch anything in this state. It was the worst part of it all, not being able to embrace my mom, not being able to feel her arms wrapped around my back while I sobbed into her firm shoulder. A mother's touch is like no other, it soothes sadness and mends broken hearts. A teenager needs their mom more than anything. Even when I screamed at her and locked myself in my bedroom, I still wanted to creep out moments later and tell her the truth, tell her the reason why I got so angry, why I yelled at her over something so idiotic. Then one day, there was nobody to yell at, nobody to laugh with, nobody to hold me as I sobbed in their arms.

Here Lies Elizabeth Wills

August 1, 1978 - August 1, 2016

"Happy Birthday, Mom. I brought you carnations - your favorite - pink."

Tears fall from my eyes and I try to hide them, wiping them off with my sleeve, hoping to dry them before she can notice. It's silly of me. After all, how could she not notice? She is looking right at me, staring me down with those mesmerizing brown eyes, so dark that they look black, just like mine.

"No more tears, my darling. Don't cry over me like this," she chastises in her loving way, hovering now over her tombstone. It's still jarring to see my mom floating, a sight I never thought I would see. I see her looking down at the carnations - she wants to pick them up, for my sake.

"I can smell them, but I wish I could hold them like I do in your poems."

At that, I gasp, staring up at her in wonder. How could she know? She's never been out of the cemetery since the day her body was buried.

Thinking about that day cuts me deeper, consuming my mind with all the melancholy emotions I felt watching them lower her casket into the ground. It was the second-worst day of my life. Rain poured through the whole service, and I'll never forget walking over to the casket, seeing her doll-like face, and thinking about the angels who took back their precious porcelain. She was married off to the heavens, all dressed in white as her lifeless body floated down into the ground.

That day she looked almost as beautiful as she did before her time in the hospital. When she was there, she looked petrified - the vacuum was sucking away her life force day after day until there was nothing left but the illusion of a once brave woman. I watched the last ounce of life leave her marvelous brown eyes as I tightly clutched her hand, wailing while the nurses and my father tried to pull me away from her icy body. That was the worst day of my life. Not a single one of the hundreds of pink carnations I had put at her bedside could save her, no matter how much hope she claimed they held.

I try to wave that memory away, not wanting to think about it anymore than I already have. It's been exactly three years since she passed away. Her life came full circle. She arrived on August 1st and died the same day thirty-eight years later.

"You get lost in your thoughts like me."

I catch a meditative wrinkle in her pale lips, almost certain she is remembering her father, who passed away a year before her. She was never the same after he died. Some days, when I catch myself aimlessly staring off, I remember the wistful expression my mom would dawn - pinched lips, glassy eyes, and stoic features. A ghost before she even died.

Whenever I asked her what she was thinking about, she would always say, "Just your grandfather."

She was that way, though, even before he passed. There was always something on her mind causing the pain I noticed in those milky brown eyes, red with tears, covered up by layers of makeup and empty smiles. My father chose to ignore it, but kids never forget the emptiness of blank stares and quivering lips.

"How did you know I wrote poems about you? I never write here," I reply, hoping to focus her attention back on me before both our minds disappear from this plane of existence.

For a moment, she just smiles. I stand there, the chill in the air shown in the clouds of my breath as I anxiously anticipate her answer, wondering what else of mine she's read.

"A few times, I've managed to appear outside the cemetery walls. It takes quite a lot of strength, however. I have to manage my strength wisely, or else..."

She drifts off again, inadvertently withholding an answer to one of the many questions I've asked about the afterlife, answers I wish I knew but will never comprehend.

The psychic said that some brave souls, the ones who have more love than they know what to do with, could break past the cemetery walls.

Could love be my mom's strength?

I hadn't believed the psychic then. I still haven't gone back to see her, even though she said my mom was her favorite customer, and that she'd be happy to give me free readings whenever I wanted, a minor consolation for my major loss. It didn't come as a surprise that Madame Ines called my mom her favorite customer - she was everybody's favorite customer. With her lovely smile and mystical eyes, nobody could resist her charm. Everywhere she went, kindness and joy radiated. Even in those last few weeks at the hospital, she still smiled when she saw my face and the bouquet of pink carnations in my hand.

"You mean, you saw me, at home?" I ask, yearning for the answer to be a resounding yes. Had she seen me sleeping? Had she seen me rest my eyes and lay my head of identical raven black curls against my pillow? Had she seen my book of poems? Had she floated beside my sheets, singing sweet lullabies while I dreamt of a time when we were still a family, when my father hadn't been sucked away from the world and when I wasn't sometimes wishing I could join him?

"Where else? Who else am I going to see but you?" She pleads with a reassuring smile, reaching out her hand to caress my cheek, before pulling away, remembering that she can't touch me or anyone else ever again. She's confined to the foggy expanse of limbo, teetering between life and death. At least, that's what Madame Ines claims. Personally, I never really believed in all the supernatural psychic shit, but my mom was a firm believer. On Sundays, she went to church and the rest of the week she visited Madame Ines, or consulted tarot cards, or warmed up her collection of essential oils. My mom was a very faithful woman, and she proudly placed her Bible, her Herbal Remedies Recipe Book, and her tarot cards right beside each other on her nightstand.

"What about Dad? Do you visit him?"

At the mention of Dad, my mom's ghostly white complexion seems to glean even whiter. I only call him Dad with her, a name too personal, too affectionate to use anymore.

She seems hesitant. I can see it in her shifting eyes, wavering between whether or not she should tell me the truth. She should know by now that I am not her little boy anymore. There's not much truth left in this world that I haven't already learned.

"I see him sometimes."

She pauses, biting her lip and circling her fingers anxiously, clicking her nails together. Nervous habits, same as mine.

"But I don't have to leave the cemetery to do that."

"Are you saying he comes to see you? He told me he doesn't have the strength to visit the cemetery," I ramble on in confusion.

"You're right, he doesn't come to the cemetery. He sees me in the vacuum. He doesn't think it's me though. He thinks he's imagining it, only seeing vivid memories of me from his own mind. I worry about him, my darling. I worry about him more than I worry about you. I've seen the future. Your dad is losing his tether, he's teetering in limbo, dealing with dangerous things. He wants to see me, loves to see me. He thinks it's all a fantasy, but he doesn't realize what he's messing with. I've seen his feet lift up from the ground. I've seen him float into the clouds. I don't want that for him. He needs to stay behind, live a good life. You need him. I know you do."

I'm not sure if I need my father, not sure if I even want him in my life anymore. At least he still pays the bills, or we would be in serious trouble.

My mom can't stop herself from weeping, unable to wipe the ghostly tears off her foggy cheeks. I can tell that she's getting tired. Her strength is waning. She says He only gives her so much time. Limbo is a dangerous place to stay in. It's where the unforgiven wail in torture and pain. It's where separated lovers blindly search for one another. It's where my father travels to from time to time. It's the black hole that sucks in the weakest around us.

I don't want to argue with her in our final moments, completely unsure when I'll see her again.

Instead, I nod, convincing her she can leave, even though I know she certainly does not need my permission. She smiles at me one last time, blowing me a kiss before whisking away with the August wind, leaving me alone in the endless expanse of the mysterious inky black night.