As I Lay (Dying) In a Holy City of the Imagination

I've made up
my mind already,

morbid thoughts
somehow managing
to escape the grasp
of happiness,

I know where
I want to die.

Only nineteen
and already
imagining the
penultimate breath,

so curious,
with so much life to
live, imagining it
cessation.

Why?

I am not afraid...
or at least I do
not want to be,
to die.

And already I
feel a weight,
an unencumbered darkness,
clawing, chameleon body:

Mother Earth struggling,
to shade herself, yet
melting,
losing form as exhaust
fumes dance sluggishly
around her,

genetic material coded
for disease--
failing hearts, kidneys,
livers, eyes,

and natural decomposition
of mind,
body,
soul,
torn and frayed
by the winds
of the Time.

And yet,

this
declaration is not
dark,

is not mysterious,

does not wear a
grotesque mask,

(I've never felt lighter.)

Perhaps it is because
I lack the eyes of a seer,
composition of a
misanthrope, am no
wraith

that I imagine my
death to be wondrous,

not in design, but
in the moments leading
up.

I want to die
in New Orleans,

a favourite poet
remarked it was
one of the holy cities
of the imagination.

Walking along
uneven sidewalks,
disfigured by the
roots of mighty oaks,
as the sun sets,
illuminating the sky
in royal purples

I cannot miss the
truth in this statement,
and this only a
fragment of a larger
whole

to the grandeur
and horrors,
superimposed
in vast mansions
with shutters you
want to peak in
to houses, in ruins,
you could see from
miles.

I want to die in
the place that has
inspired Capote,
Faulkner, Williams
and the like,

a place where my
own passing disappears

into the mystery
of Vieux Carre in
winter fog,

into the anger
and sadness of
the huddled masses,
hungry outside of
a shelter in Mid-City,

into the imagination
of the past,

into the imagination
of where the world
will go,

and into the imagination,
so holy and profound,
that lets me float freely
above all ills which
plague my body and mind.

I cannot imagine it any
other way.