My Dying To Do List – Libby Kyosho MacKay

Give my body to science – tick
Avoid suicide
That means a post mortem
The university doesn’t like post mortem donors
Not enough to dissect.

Do Not Resuscitate. Tick
There’s a list of reasons
Not to live
In my book
On the piano
Saves the living deciding
If I die.

List of bills. Tick
Tells you what to turn off.
Apart from me.
There is gas, electricity, for example.
Can’t have the living paying for the dead.

Not sure about
Actually dying.
No-one has left instructions for this.
So – no tick.

If death
Is that place
I inhabit
In dreamless sleep.
Thats fine by me.

Or that place
Where the ego is forbidden,
Emptiness.
That’s ok.

However,
What if
Dying includes
Morphine?
No consciousness,
No calm goodbyes.
No detaching from the material world.
Just
Slack jaw,
Gurgling chest
Dribbling
Looking my worst
In front of my family.

The final
Bit of the list
Remains
Unwritten.