I want to stop pretending we have anywhere else to go.

Sitting in a wide straddle on the floor,

hands suspended over the floral carpet,

today I cut my nails. Watched slivers of myself

hang glide to the floor. Pinched the torn paper

towel corners together, as if fashioning a purse

out of puff pastry. And for the first time,

rather than throw the whole delicacy in the trash,

I dropped my pouch into the compost bin.

I would have done it sooner but my city-

sanctioned green-waste container is new and now

so is my ritual. I once read a book about death

and funerals and how traditions change across cultures.

How in the Western World we have turned dying

into a for-profit industry. But some states

like Colorado and Washington are experimenting

with human composting. That is, undertakers lay

expired bodies in a vessel with wood chips, alfalfa,

and straw until microbes turn everything inside,

person and all, into a cubic yard of soil. Now

I can't stop thinking of myself as fertilizer. Imagining

plants I might sustain as characters like Fred Armisen

and Carrie Brownstein on the episode of Portlandia

when they ask their server about the organic

chicken on the menu. "Did she have a good life,

before she turned into soil? Was she a free-

range human?" Please, if you see them,

tell them yes. I did. I was. And turning nothing

into something was my favorite thing to do.