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.

A woman draped in a black hooded dress
Softly and slowly the coffin she caress
She is here for the death
She is quiet bereft
The tears slide down her flawless face
Cheeks a pink rose tint, lips blood red hue, there's no disgrace
Her hair is raven colored, she is nothing, if not grace
Her healing hands over her face she places
Her gut wrenching anguished moans can be heard for miles
She falls to her knees in the aisles
Behind her closed eyes she sees every moment of this life
The microseconds of happiness the years of anguish and strife
She cries and wails for a life lived this way
She moans and sways
For in that coffin is where her life lays

dear don't cry for me I know it hurts,
but their is nothing that you could do.
I know that you want to follow me threw
but its not the time for you.
take a deep breath and then another,
take a few days to recover.
know that I will always love you no mater witch way the wind blows.
I am hear and you are their,
I know that it huts,
and its hard to bare.
just take a step back
a try to understand that....I don't want you to hurt.
wipe the tears out of your eye,
I don't want you to cry.
If you need me I will stay until you fall asleep.
one day I will see you again,
but until then just remember,
don't cry for me I know that it hurt
and their is nothing that you could do.
Just smile as often as you can,
and remember I love you

I'll sing my own funeral song
And attend my wake alone
I'll write and read my eulogy
And drive my hearse home.

I'll sing my own funeral song
Send my own soul to rest
I'll pray over my casket
And mourn my life and death.

I'll sing my own funeral song
Place a single flower on my grave
I'll out myself into the ground
And cover my stilled face.

I am plagued with dreams
Of your face
Every night
I close my eyes
Knowing I'll see you again

I want to stay
And know it's true
But in reality you're dead
You're never coming back

I called you my friend
And I, yours
We spent so much time together
Playing guitar
Walking to the park
Going to church
Getting into trouble at school
Joking
Singing
Laughing

But never again
I will never see you again
I just want you back
I want to see you
Not in my dreams
I want reality to be
What it used to be

I'm left here alive
And you died of disease
You were so young
You were only 19

My room smells like a funeral.

Mother never let me drink her special juice.
Pants around ankles,
she cried in the garage because
she just couldn't make it to the bathroom.
A child isn't meant to change
her parents'
diapers.

She almost died once,
three percent chance of living.
I’m ten, and
in the back of my mind
all I can think
is maybe now
she’ll stop drinking.

She doesn’t.

But she bought me a bouquet of flowers,
peace treaty blemished by thorns.

I often think upon your funeral,
and I have a suspicion
it will smell like this.