Truthful Lines - Poem

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Greg Luti’s poem “Truthful Lines” reflects on those rare, powerful moments when a single line — in a story, a poem, or a conversation — cuts through everything else with raw, uncomfortable truth that stays with you long afterward.

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There are times when lines or moments can mean more than the rest of the scene or story being told.

We all stop for a second because of the line.

The part is so honest, so truthful, that we have to take a moment and appreciate what was said.

The beauty of these lines is that they can really come from anywhere.

There is no one place you can go to find these lines.

Can you imagine if that were the case?

You walk into your local corner store for some of those truthful lines.

“Yeah, I am looking for the new lines that tell an uncomfortable truth about our world, but still stay with a person long after they are done with the original art. Do you have those?”

“We have a few. They are next to the birthday cards.”

It seems fitting that lines that give us universal knowledge and timeless information would somehow be put next to the birthday cards.

No, not in the aisle with the toys.

If you go to that aisle, you went too far.

I am talking about the aisle with the school supplies on one end, and the romance novels at the other end.

It used to have magazines, but not anymore. Those all got moved to the front of the store.

These truths give us something that we are all searching for, and yet there is not a damn place in the world where you can go to actually find them.

There is a certain level of irony there that I am not even sure I fully appreciate.

Whoever created this world thought, “I am going to have things that many people will agree with, and if they know these things, their lives will be better, but you know what? I won’t even tell people where I put them. They will have to find them themselves.”

Apparently, life is nothing more than an Easter Egg Hunt, but instead of looking for plastic eggs that have candy inside them, we are looking for truths that help change our mentality about the world.

Oh, and there are no parents guiding us along the way, practically giving the eggs to us.

We are on our own.

Like many who have ever experienced these lines, I get them at the most awkward spot possible.

You know what I am talking about here, too.

I will be listening to a song, and then a line hits me in a way that I have to stop the song and reflect on what the line even means.

I turned on my playlist to relax and hear some tunes, not have a thoughtful moment where I am wondering my place in the world.

The only time more awkward than a line from a song morphing my mood is when I am talking to someone at work, as we are going about our day, and one of us says something that is deep and meaningful.

We are not philosophers.

We don’t study any of that stuff.

But for a brief moment, you could have sworn Plato was talking to Socrates.

We both look at each other, surprised by how enlightened we are.

Of course, it only takes us a few seconds to start complaining about the amount of coffee in our cup and the parking lot being redone.

Our thought that should have been quoted and remembered was forgotten because one of us had to complain about a stranger talking in a funny way, or handling a situation differently than we would.

The most recent example I had of a truthful line sneaking up on me was not at work or in my interactions with another person, but in music.

I was at my desk setting up the social media posts for the week, a job no writer wants to do.

I play music to pass the time, and I got to a song that I have heard many times before.

It is by that guy who also had a chicken restaurant.

Kenny Rogers.

In the song, he discusses an exchange between a young man and a stranger who knows about life and is speaking in metaphorical terms.

The young man is playing cards with the stranger, but the stranger is using the game to give lessons on life.

One line hit me: The best you can do is die in your sleep.

I stopped the song when I heard that line.

My god, is that really the best that I can do?

Is that really the best that any of us can do?

To die in your sleep…

To go to sleep one night and just never wake up.

That is the best you can do.

Damn, that is not a line I needed to hear in between deciding on my Tuesday and Wednesday posts.

How come no one has ever told me about this very important part of my life?

No teacher ever brought this up.

No friend ever mentioned it to me.

No one.

No one ever said to me that the best you can do in life is die in your sleep.

Now, you would think that is something people would take time to tell others, but no, we don’t do that.

Instead, I am told random nonsense about nutritional facts and opinions by strangers I have never met.

You would think that one of them would stop by and tell us this important news.

“Oh, hey, everyone. I just have to tell you something. Don’t worry. This won’t take long. I just want all of you to know that the best you can do is die in your sleep. Yeah, no. I am not kidding. That is really the best you can. We have done studies. We have researched this, and although we don’t have any testimonies, there are a lot of people who believe that dying is your sleep, is the best for you. So yeah…”

I had to hear something like that from a freaking singer on my playlist.

What is wild about this is how that is the best we can do, and that still doesn’t seem all that great.

I mean, not that I have any experience with dying in my sleep, but that still seems pretty bad.

Then again, what are we really comparing it to?

Getting shot, having a heart attack, or getting run over by a car.

Compared to the other ways you can die, dying in your sleep is not that bad.

Sometimes I have gone to bed and thought, “What if I don’t wake up? I mean, I don’t think it will happen, but what if it does?”

It is a bit scary that going to bed alone and then ending your life without anyone knowing is the best-case scenario.

My god, I don’t even want to think about the other scenarios.

There is an unsettling part to this poem.

I am alive.

I have no idea how I am going to die, and one day someone may read this and know how I died and then say to themselves, “That Greg, he went out in his sleep, as he wanted.”

Or maybe I don’t, and something else tragically happens to me, making me one of those people who did not get the best I could hope for with my death.

The reader one day will know more about my life and death than I ever will, since I don’t know how I am going to die.

And for now, let’s keep it that way.

The best you can hope for is to die in your sleep.

Son of a gun… this entire time I was so worried about living, I forgot there was an end to all of this, too.

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