Poem of the Week

Notes for My Funeral

Alex Dimitrov

No one’s allowed to tell
their sad story at my funeral.
No one’s allowed to tell
my sad story at my funeral.
There must be cocaine.
Talk shit about all the people
I hated. I’ll still hate them
(probably even more when I’m dead).
Play Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day”
on repeat. Don’t cry.
Don’t be embarrassing.
It’s not a good song
to do drugs to so after
play Fleetwood and take
a Xanax. Rent a room
overlooking Central Park
and get more drugs.
Invite strangers up.
Don’t return desperate
texts from people who
hound you because
they’re boring.
Just think about me.
Think of New York.
How the people who
never liked me never
liked me because they
always assumed I was
having too much fun.
And you know what?
I was. I loved being alive.

Alex Dimitrov is the author of three books of poems, including Love and Other Poems. He lives in New York.
Originally published:
February 9, 2021

Featured

10 Ways Ms., Sassy, and Jezebel Changed Your Life!

How contradiction drove fifty years of feminist media
Maggie Doherty

How Emily Wilson Reimagined Homer

Her boldly innovative translation of the Iliad is an epic for our time
Emily Greenwood

In the Shallows

Why do public intellectuals condescend to their readers?
Becca Rothfeld

You Might Also Like

Poem of the Week

Geese

Robert Travers

Poem of the Week

Over and Above

Jennifer Grotz

Newsletter

Sign up for The Yale Review newsletter and keep up with news, events, and more.