A Preface

This is my first time posting an original piece of mine on here so forgive my nerves! Also, I'm not sure how well it reads, because this is technically a Spoken Word piece, but I can't upload any videos right now so I guess this will have to do.

I was at the funeral for a friend this week, and it's inspired by her - an amazing woman taken far before her time. But because I'm a damn narcissist I started thinking about what my funeral would be like... so here it is!

At My Funeral

At my funeral
Leave your sadness at the door.
I only brought joy to your welcome mat,
So you best only bring joy to my fucking farewell.

I don’t want you drowned out
In a sea of weather-beaten black
Washed along with the tide
Of the processional as they stream through the door.
I want a field of colour,
Flowers growing from beneath your hem
A crown of wreath on your brow -
I want High Fantasy Theme at my casket;
Friends dressed like elves and mermaids and dragons.
I want a mother fucking dragon at my funeral.

On the Facebook invite, under the faces of the “attending” -
Because only assholes click “maybe” to a funeral -
I want just one request:
That people bring my favorite flower.
That if you knew me,
Even a bit
Even at all,
That you would know at the very least
What flower you should bring…

And my ghost will laugh beyond the veil
As one by one people realise
My dead ass didn’t have a favorite flower.
I’m allergic to pollen.
That I prefered to keep fresh mint leaves
In teacups at my kitchen window.

At my funeral I want the people voicing their grief
To stand in front of those that I have loved
And held dear in my heart
And tell them how much of an asshole I was.

To remind them of the time
I puked in a cup at a friend’s house
And left it on the shelf
For someone else to deal with.

I want their tears of sorrow to fall
Alongside the sweeter tears of laughter
That even in death
No one will quite know
Whether to love or loathe me.

I want someone to show up
Drunker than the body of sin
Singing happy birthday
And popping champagne over my casket
Trying to fumble together a metaphor
About the fizz of popping bubbles
Being as fleeting as life.

I want one person, just one,
To grace the podium with sincerity.
To spill the words of respect;
“Beautiful inside and out”
“An oasis in the desert”
“Strong, and capable, and a fighting spirit”
And I want, about halfway through,
For people to realise they’re talking about my character in Dungeons and Dragons.

And when they call for a moment of silence
Let it last for five seconds
Before you rise up onto the pews to sing
La Vie Boheme because you knew
That silence to me was an abhorrent waste
Of the joy we can bring with laughter and with sound.

And let this all happen
In the most militant of churches
Under the guise that I was kin to mother Teresa
And when they throw you out
I want you to take to the streets in the rain
And let yourself freeze as you laugh and you scream
That I didn’t need to be cremated any more
My gay polyamorous ass burned up the second I crossed that threshold.

I want people to take a keepsake, and leave a keepsake.
Pilfering items from the linings of my home
That you can steal some meaning from;
A tiny Harley Quinn because she reminds you of me,
Or a book you know is punctuated with my tears,
Or a ten pound note because I never paid you back.

And in its place I want you to leave
Something that you made;
A poem, or a drawing, or a badly made paper flower,
Anything that forced you in your shitty adult life to take a moment
And allow yourself the guilty pleasure
Of creativity.

And I want you to turn to the people next to you
And say one nice thing.
And I want you to feel in that moment
That you deserve every good thing said about you.

And I want it to be known
And spoken from worthy lips
That while in life I wanted to die one hundred times
And thought I should have died one hundred more
That in the end death took me
Kicking and screaming
From this god damn brilliant world.

And every day that you live
Don’t live it for me
Or the ones you knew.
Live it for you.
And live it to spite the ones
Who thought you wouldn’t
And the days you thought you couldn’t.

At my funeral
Leave your sadness at the door,
Bring the joy you have always brought me,
Just one last time.