When I die, lay me down under a willow treefacing my mountains dressed in blue. Bury me in the costume jewelry my grandmother gave me-a ring on every fingertwo on each pinky and thumb.Put me in the ground with my pewter wolf still nestled in the hollow of my throat and my sword around my neck. I don’t want a fancy coffin;leave me to the crows I loved so much in life.Let my body be my final gift to the land.Promise to only tell the truth.Tell the truth of how I burned.Sometimes like the sunlightthat peppers your eyelids with kisses in the dog days of summer-some days like a wildfire devouring everything in it’s path. Tell them of how my rage blazed as hot as my lovebut I never let it hold me for longand I couldn’t hold a grudgeto save my own damn life.Tell the truth of how I was a pain in the assand would argue a point until I was blue in the face but damn it, did I make life more interesting.When I die, I want you to throw the biggest party this town has ever seen. Only the most outrageous outfits will do!If I look down to an ocean of black at my wake, I swear I’ll haunt you all.Play my Inner Summer playliston a speaker at my funeral;turn up the volume as loud as it will goand dance.When I die, tell my children that they hung the moon and the stars in my sky.Tell them that they were the greatest thingI ever created.Tell them that I’ll see them again somedayin some other waybut that until then, they’ve got one hell on wheels kinda angel protecting them on the other side. When I die, cover the ground where I lay in wildflowers and scribbled lines of poetry. Put crow feathers, coyote hair, roses and honey next to my picture on the family altar. Leave the thorns on the stems. On Sunday mornings, pour a cup of black coffee on the Earth.Right there in my favorite spotwhere I spent so many afternoonswatching the birds dance and play. Plant butterfly bushes.Right there, where I held a ruby throated hummingbird in the palm of my hand and felt the pulse of God herself through a blanket of green feathers. Give my words away.Pass my journals down to my grandchildren;let my spells live on in the hands and hearts of the generations to come after me. Tear out all of my head in the oven poems written for that one lover that got awayand mail them to his door. Stamp two wolves on the envelope and tell him how I wished for so longthat we had more time. Tell him that I’ll see him in another life in a den underground. Let these pages tell a living story of each time I cradled heartbreak in my hands and still dared to love again.When I die, let our love keep you warmwhen sadness comes to call.Let grief in the front door (don’t make her search for the spare key)Let her soften your sharp edges.Let her crack you open and remind you to live your life like this is all going to end. Because one day, it does. If we’re lucky,this life will have been enough-a spark in the dark that lit a thousand flames. A story that will live on in the blood and bones of the ones we leave behind. When I die, may the life I lived be the flare that lit the matchof a torch called freedom.May it be the best story I ever birthedfrom the tip of my pen.May it be the permission slip to be bold.May it be the heart song that sets my lineage free.
- Peyton Michelle Bryant

More from Peyton Michelle Bryant ↓

• @mama.laloba on Instagram
• Peyton Bryant on Substack
• Her book, Feral Mother, Sovereign Woman, is out now

You can listen to me read another poem by Peyton, I don’t know who god is exactly but I know this, over on Instagram @rembrandts.cure

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