when i die, i don't want a funeral.

i want a celebration of my life.
i want someone to plant a tree in my honor,
or name a new star after me.
my death should be conveyed through a form of life,
not through my body sitting and rotting in a wooden box
as people shuffle past me and pray monotonously.  
i don't want everyone i knew
to come and mourn my departure together,
comforting each other, wishing i'd had more time on earth.
i don't want people to tell their children at the funeral,
"you don't need to see her if you don't want to."

i want to be cremated, but not just sit in a jar over a fireplace.
i want my ashes spread all across the world.
i want my ashes to reach places that i could not when i was alive.
i want to be sprinkled over a volcano and dashed over the aegean sea.
i want my heart to be in egypt and turkey,
my arms to be in paris and new york,
my lungs to be in haiti,
my spine to be in greece,
my legs to be in antarctica.

i want to travel even when i no longer can.
i want my death to be the extension of my life.

-m. j. g.