Bathe in Color

2. Paris Wills, Age 16, August 1, 2019

"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.