Punctuation

love is a period
it comes at the end of the sentence
it’s closure, that’s what love is: completeness
knowing that this is where you are and this is where you’ll stay
but no – I don’t believe that for a second

love is an exclamation point
or at least it shares some of the same qualities
as far as English grammar is concerned,
actually I’ve lost myself here
that makes no sense at all

love is a question mark…
love curves around on you like a question mark?
or it has a question mark after it like this: LOVE?
or maybe there was some question relating to love,
it’s eluding me

no – I’ve got it now:

“Do you want to come up to my room?”
a boy asked me that once, and that’s where I saw the question mark
for a few precious seconds, just after his beer-breath reached my nostrils
and just before his hand slipped around my waist to lead me up his parents’ stairs
there was a question mark hanging in the air

now, I know that wasn’t love, not the real stuff,
and I even knew it then – but my English teacher was away for the weekend
and her son had a party while she was gone, and I was invited
and up until that point the only things that occupied my weekends
were my grammar notebooks

 

© 2007 Hannah Oberlin