Grief clocked in early because she stopped answering her phone, 

before I lost the chance to ever call her again.

When I stared at my screen wondering where she went, when she always answered.

Then I drove through three states and took a boat only to have her first words be, 

What the hell are you doing here?

Of course I came, I said.

Even though in that moment, looking at the malformed image of my mother, I wished in the furthest reaches of the universe that I never came at all.

Because that is how I remembered her for years to follow –

The hiss of oxygen.

The torturous buzz of ceiling lights with their yellow glow.

I remember praying for god to come down from those bulbs and I remember praying to the devil when god didn’t come just give me more time. 

Make her open her eyes again, make her see how much I was hurting. 

But no one came except for nurses and family and voyeurs seeking out example.

And then the silence happened. 

How I dread the silence. 

Although I never saw her sleep so peacefully,

Deep, deep inside down to where her soul remained.

And I slept, barely at best, in chairs,

acquainted myself with the hospital floors, 

brushed away dead bugs and listened to whispers of ghosts behind curtains, 

wondering if they came to collect or if it was just her leaving.

If she answered a call I could not hear in the silence.