Becoming Everything

When I die I want to be buried in the ground with no coffin. I want my naked flesh against the earth. I want to feel her heartbeat against my skull. I want the soil under my fingernails, and the tree roots to wrap around me in an earthly hug. I want to become one with the place I’ve called home. I want the sunflowers to bloom from my flesh, I want the sunbeams shining down trying to revive me with their warmth, I want the clouds to cry as the sky longs for that revival to come true. I want the rain to wash my bones each time, and I want the water to flow underneath me into the rivers, lakes, and oceans. I want to know that my body still lives on and lingers through the entire earth, that my energy still exists in what today is taken for granted.

When I die, I don’t want the worms to have to struggle to do what’s natural. I don’t want a barrier between them and my burrowed body, I know that these worms will eat through me, but then help gardens grow. I’ll be laying there with dirt suffocating my already still heart as they eat their way through my flesh. The same flesh you brushed your lips and fingers against. The same flesh that was beaten and tattered, the same flesh my tears fell upon as I cried myself to sleep. The same flesh that was sunburnt and painted on. The flesh that was scented of lavender and patchouli. They’ll tear it all away and dine on my empty treasure chest of a body. They’ll see this as a feast of the world knowing that once this treasure chest was full. A beating heart, a smile that let loud laughter escape, sapphire blue eyes, hands that loved to paint, and write, and a soul that felt things no one else could see. Like most earthly treasures taken for granted, beauty not seen and picked at and covered up, and hidden, and buried in clothing, beauty criticized by others as too fat, too short, too hairy, too many freckles. The worms will be grateful for the gift you once hated for being too much. And this is what we deserve. For our bodies to return to the earth that created them, the earth that breathed oxygen into our lungs and painted sunsets for us to watch. We deserve to return to that, we deserve to be forced to watch the life we can no longer live, because it is only once we lose something we realize its beauty and value.

When I die I want mother earth to remind me of exactly where I came from, and exactly where I belong. I want my tears to be the rain, my breath to be the wind my sorrow to be the storm clouds. I want my laughter to be the rainbows and my smile to be the sun. When I die I don’t want to be alive searching for love and beauty beneath the surface. I want to return to myself where I belong, I want the earth to gently rock me as I return to my most pure self. I want to feel at peace with my death, free of all of life’s pains. Free to rest, to feel, and to create new life. I don’t want people grieving and placing flowers at my grave. I want them to finally hear me, to finally see my true beauty and worth. I want them to realize that I’m the elements all around them, that their words no longer can break my heart, I want to become the sticks and stones they used to beat me down. And I want to be the rains that wash away their sins. When I die I won’t be nothing, I’ll be everything.