When I die, the package that once contained me will be left in your care. Please take it into the Angeles Mountains and tuck in under a scrubby little lupin bush. Later that night, apricot colored coyote parents will feed bits of my biceps to their babies.
When I leave this body, feed it whole into a furnace at which my warrior daughter will forge a delicate sword. My carbon will infuse the steel which will rest in her tiny hands as she defends her home.
This boney package, this squishy container, was my home. I lived in it for many years. Do not dispose of it. Take the beams, the nails, the windows and repurpose them.
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When you die, most of the living, still safely ensconced in their own fleshy homes, will be concerned with the manner in which you left yours. Did you leave hastily? Were you forced out? Did you simply walk out the back door? We will be concerned with your safe passage to a new town we've never visited. We will try to envision your new home.
But what of the home you just left? I visited you there often. I can no longer sit on your porch drinking coffee in the yellow mornings, no longer work in your garden with you, no longer straddle the steps playing ukulele, telling stories, drinking wine and petting cats. I can no longer touch your home. I loved your home. I loved the warmth of your furnace, the textures of your bath towels and bedsheets, the smells of your kitchen. I loved your home because it held you so faithfully.
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At your funeral, when I approach your coffin with the other mourners, I will slip a cotton envelope of shiny black beetles into your pocket.
I will come back to the cemetery on the next new moon. The dirt will still be soft. I will uncover your box and break the seal with kitchen scissors. I will build a city around you made of every art project your child ever made. I will tuck your true love's letters under your shoulders. Directly over your heart I will set a cup of blood collected from the fingers of everyone who held your stories. In the hollow of your stomach, I will pile every delicious food your precious body craved. I'll set your favorite tools in your hands. Behind your knees I'll cram piles of fur from all the animals who once curled their warm little bodies against yours. I will gaze at your beautiful house, now empty, and I will purposely remember every beam and bone, the blood and tea, the nerves and porch lights, the windows through which I saw your life with you.
After replacing the dirt, (fortified with wormy compost from neighborhood gardens), I will plant a blueberry bush then haul the coffin lid to the beach. Your friends and I will build a bon fire and tell bourbon soaked stories about you.
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When I die, cut my body into chunks. Hide the smaller chunks in the parks around Culver City. In the sage scented mornings, while you drink your coffee, the crows who really own this town will pull my flesh from these stellar bones. Give the big chunks to your dogs. Let them sneak my bones behind the couch.
Cut my hair and spin it into thread. Hang a dream catcher made of rib bones and eyelashes above my daughter's bed.
Mix my blood with sidewalk chalk and paint love letters on my friend's driveways.
Three years from now, when you miss me, go outside and get a lemon and some tomatoes from the back yard. Slice them open and see me smiling at you. Nibble me into your house. I miss you too.
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