If I should die today...

If I should die today, I trust my housemate to hide my sex toys from my grandmother.
I give him full permission to redistribute my lesbian erotica to a closeted queer,
with sad eyes, and a quiet smile.
May it help them learn the shape of their pleasure
and some new ways to refer to the vagina.

If I should die today, you can keep my glasses,
if you promise to look through them once in a while,
take a day off now and again, and remember to breathe.
If I should die today I give you permission buy yourself flowers for no reason.
To sing in in the shower, and steal vegetables from big supermarket brands.

If I should die today, I hope my ex-lovers speak to one another and compare love letters.
I hope they forgive me for my bad spelling.
I hope they remember the nights when we swapped dreams for kisses
when the rising sun was our own personal spotlight.
If I should die today, I hope every orgasm you ever have
feels likes a personal gift from whatever god or political figure you believe in.

If I should die today, I hope you all remember how unapologetically
fat and queer and northern and working class I was.
Should you ever forget please please check my tumblr.
If I should die today, take a memory each from my memory jar.
Plant it in your pocket, grow your own happiness,
dance to LCD Soundsystem.

If I should die today, I know I'd want to be remembered as
flawed and fabulous.
So there are some things you should know.
I never really stopped thinking of Pluto as a planet.
Sometimes I was too tired to listen to you, so I just nodded.
If I should die today, remember that I would never lose an argument.
I'd just lose people.

Remember there were times when I drank too much and cried on buses,
times when I gave crumbs instead of talk to people sitting on pavements.
Times when I watched nurse Jackie rather than reading.
If I should die today, in the last seconds before I pass,
I'll be pissed off for not knowing how the novel I'm reading ends.

If I should die today, there's a story I wrote called Sirens.
It says everything I couldn't.
If I should die today, please don't stop writing letters to me.
If I should die today there's no special wisdom I can impart
no beautiful metaphor I can create
no staggering philosophy.

If I should die today, please mix my ashes with glitter,
throw them at homophobes, and tories and

anyone else who ever acts like your existence is worth less than the organic hand soap at their children's private school.

There are no words I can write in my living room at five past nine on a Tuesday night that will ever describe your worth.

But you are doing just fine. 

If I should die today, please wear fancy dress to my funeral.

Please remember not to pray for me, 

not to name a star after me 

or justify bad decisions with 'that's what she would have wanted'. 

I will only ever want beautiful things for you. 

(This includes revolution.)

If I should die today plant a tree in your garden for me, 

call it hope, 

teach yourself how it comes back to life every spring.