How Will You / Have You Prepare(d) For Your Death? *
I have betrayed so much of the life I was expected to live. I got away with choosing my own lover. I got away with choosing more than one lover. I got away with having to make the choice of a lover from only one gender. In love, I chose freedom. So in death, I feel like I’m supposed to do what is asked of me—burial, not cremation.
But where is the right ground to be buried? Is it the place that I yearn for that doesn’t exist? If I choose this imaginary location, would anyone ever come by to pay their respects, show up with flowers? (How would they know how to find me?) Would old friends sit by my graveside, eating cheese and pickle sandwiches, whispering their secrets into the soil? (I have a wish for all the secrets that are ever whispered by a graveside to be about love.)
I have given some thought to being turned into ashes. Ashes recognize the complexity of living; they allow themselves to be divided—one scoop in the sea, another scoop on land, a third scoop flowing wildly out of the window of a steam train.
I have already tried setting myself on fire. What I remember most is that after this burning it was difficult to ride in the car—as the burns began to heal, the scabs dug into my flesh. The small vibration of a moving vehicle was my biggest fear. Once the bandages were removed, there was a map of my homeland on my stomach, and the city of my birth on my left hip.