the language of punctuation

We are told to start sentences
with capital
letters, to commence literary
encounters with
widely acknowledged forms
of communication, to begin
with words that suggest
a beginning (and & but are
for middles, use them
to join
two sentence fragments).

We are told to use commas
to break the flow,
to allow our
reader to breathe, step
back from the piece
and contemplate
what has come before (predict
what is yet
to arrive) but that
too many will cause them
to lose interest.

We are told to use periods
as endings, to signal
a termination, a thought
that can
no longer be
expanded (or, at very
least, must be expanded
in a different venue).

and we did not use capitals, formal
introductions or ambiguous
casual beginnings, our first
paragraph began with ‘and',
although we have yet to
figure out
what came before it

and we used far too many
commas, feeling the
distance grow as we
lined them up between us,
taking so many breaths
that we became
unsure of what to do
with all the air
inside our lungs

and we have yet to find a word
worthy of having
a period placed
next to it

but eventually we'll run out of

ink.