To where the lines converge
now. You held my hand tighter, because of the cold, I guess or
Don’t you envy the lines?, you asked me while we lay on the
blanket, damp grass underneath, looking up the sky and waiting for
the meteor shower. “ Lines? What lines?” I replied, startled. I don’t
know if you were talking about poetry lines or those lines you draw
with a pencil. I couldn’t understand you sometimes. You’re a poet
and you often speak in tongues I cannot understand like one time I
asked you what you’re doing and you replied leaning into the
afternoons,I cast my sad nets upon your oceanic eyes. So you took
my hand, held them up against the night specked with stars and
traced, with your fingertip a line in my palm.
“Right. A line”,I said feeling more and more stupid as you put my
hand down and held it, making it warm with yours. “ I don’t get it,
explain further, Neruda.” I called you that often that time, ever
since that afternoon I asked what you are doing. Neruda is the poet
who wrote leaning into the afternoons.
You explained, like a teacher lecturing a student that all lines
converge in one single point across the space or the horizon and it’s
called the vanishing point. I heard about the vanishing point in a
drawing class once, so to look smart I told you it is used by artists to
get their perspectives right.
“ I never knew you used to attend a drawing class, impatient as you
are, I guess you never finished a drawing.” You said, laughing.
“ It was just one time. I never went back. So, going back to lines,
what do they have that makes you envy them so much?”
You stopped laughing, the expression on your face more serious
because you’re nervous about telling me your personal thoughts. I
know you’ve never done this before, you always kept thoughts to
yourself.
“ Lines.” You started, “I envy the lines because they know where
they are going or where they are supposed to go- there, straight
ahead towards the vanishing point. They are so sure of themselves;
they know their purpose is to guide us when we draw.”
I pondered your thought. I want to say something profound but at
the end all I can think of was, “Lines. They are certain where to go,
unlike us huh? Uncertain as winds.”
“ No. Unlike me.”
Just you huh? I would still like to argue that you are not the only
person in this world pressured and confused as to what to make of
your life. You are not the only one forced by your family to take a
choice you don’t want- medicine instead of writing.
But then the meteors came strewing the sky with streaks of bluish
light, it was beautiful. You are beautiful but I didn’t tell you that. I
don’t want to disturb you as you watch your meteors intently,
probably composing lines of poetry now that you will just expound
on later. I watched as you bask in their beauty trying to remember
all the details of the phenomena: their trailing light across the vast
universe of stars, the crescent moon hanging lazily, the cold breeze
permeated by the scent of steaming earth and the sound of the
rustling of leaves of some trees nearby. I wondered how you will
paint this scene using words. How you will weave together all these
dull noises, scents, this firmament of blinking and sweeping light
into a tapestry of verses in your black, dog eared moleskine.
I imitated you, see if I could make a poem about the meteors but
the only words I can think of was “the meteors up the sky, makes
me high.” Maybe I’ll tell you that later, no matter how absurd it is.
I’m just starting to get to know poetry, after all.
After the meteor shower you asked if I liked it, I said, Yes, I enjoyed
it so much it inspired me to make a poem, the first I ever created
and recited it to you. You let out a chuckle. I’ve amused you again
so you teasingly said, “ You sure it’s the meteors that makes you
high and not me?” God, you’re so happy that time, I thought you’ve
forgotten about the lines.
You said you also thought of some verses and told me as well how
you captured the meteors and pocketed them in your heart. Later,
you’re going to take them out and use them as ink to make your
next poem.
We never talked about lines again after that because I told you to
recite me some lines of poetry. I like your voice especially at
evenings, so melodious and gentle like running water at a small
stream. I want to drown in your voice tonight. You sat up and
looking at some far away land, you recited lines of your favorite
poems that you’ve memorized like a song. It never occurred to me
that you might not be looking at a far away land, but rather, in the
horizon, looking where all lines converge.
“You know”, I told you, a little frustrated as I get up and sat beside
you, putting my head on your shoulder “no matter how many times
you recite those poems to me I still cannot get their meaning.”
You told me in that melodious voice of yours to stop looking and
searching for what the poem technically means and concentrate
instead on how the poem affects myself. You told me to listen to
the rhymes and the repetition of words and to listen also very
carefully for that elusive voice in the poem- unique in each poet like
a fingerprint – that will tell you that this poem is created by this
particular author because the voice is the poet’s identity. You said
to abandon the search for meaning and just feel the words crawl
upon my skin and seep into my bloodstream and into my heart.
Meaning is not important now you told me; it is how you feel
towards the poem that is important: meaningfulness, you called it.
In all the poems you recited that night, the one I remembered the
most is the one by S. Quasimodo maybe because of the short
length of the poem or because it is the last poem you’ll ever recite
to me:
“Each of us is alone on the heart of the earth
pierced by a ray of sun:
and suddenly it’s evening”
And suddenly it’s evening.. and suddenly you are gone from my life
like those shooting stars only passing the sky for a moment to get
lost to oblivion again that you feel so lucky to have seen them. You
call it the brevity of beauty. But you leaving, leaving me just like
that, like a snowflake melting is not beautiful at all. Fuck the brevity
of beauty, it must not be applied to you, to what we had.
It’s been two years, two long years and I still don’t understand why,
why do you have to chase those lines that you mentioned that night
and vanish to a point where I cannot follow you, where no one can
follow you. I wish I told you that behind the vanishing point is
darkness, that there will be no meteor showers there that you
could pocket to be used as ink to paint your next poem. How I
wished I told you that maybe the line just don’t have a choice but to
follow what the society told them to do- help us to get our
perspectives right and vanish in that dark point, forgotten.

No wonder I hated the drawing class, it is because of these lines.

These lines that help you get your perspective right only in drawing
but not in life. I hate how they can tempt you to go to the unknown.
Maybe this is their revenge to us- for making them useful only at
the start and for making them “ just imaginary” when they are real-
pulling confused people with them to the black hole making them
think that they are the only thing in this world, these lines, that
know where to go.

Each of one us alone in the heart of the earth, Pierced by a ray of

sun.

You are the ray of sunshine piercing me deeper and deeper. And
now I’m alone in the heart of the earth, even the poems have left
me, their meaningfulness. You took them with you when you
decided to walk towards the vanishing point and pierced yourself
with a bullet it the head.