i once had a friend
who spoke as if he had an infinite amount of words
and wrote with inexhaustible commas,
and when i questioned why
he simply said
‘i don’t like periods
because periods are perpetual endings
and mangled promises
and forgotten friends
and decomposed loved-ones,’
he said
‘i don’t like periods
because periods mean you’re forced to start over
with a new subject, new verb, new noun,
with a new story, new people, new life,’
and he continued to say
that periods were for the walking dead
who thought it to be okay
to pretend like their actions didn’t catalyze other human beings
like atoms colliding into compounds
and like their words only took effect for the first 24-hours
like a bitter brand of cold medicine
and like ‘i love you’ and ‘i promise’ were nothing but cheap holiday cards
like that special day of the year that still everyone neglected to acknowledge,
my friend hated periods
because they meant that someday
he too would end,
and so would i
and it wouldn’t necessarily be together,
i once had a friend
and he loathed periods
because everything had to end
and acknowledging that in the form of a miniscule, inked dot
only gave it more power.
