How to Punctuate Your Expression of Love

Don’t keep that expression of love hanging without punctuation. Without punctuation, it’s open ended – waiting for life to decide the course this companionship will take. Almost as if we hold no control over what might happen of us, the lack of a punctuation mark leaves too much ambiguity. It’s as if you make a statement but lack the courage to commit to it. It’s not a stickler for grammar who commands this, but a pedant of the science of you.

Don’t punctuate your expression of love with a comma. A comma grants you the power to add more recipients to the expression. Exclusivity is probably the emotion’s greatest asset, and I would hate to imagine that you think it’s depreciable. The comma comes as a precursor to the ‘but’. You say you love me, but I can’t take a condition that would dilute the intensity of just those three words. With a ‘but’, it’s never the same.

Don’t punctuate your expression of love with a colon. It’s as if you’ll explain why you do. Don’t love me for my looks or my education or for the way I talk. Love me for the whole of me, unquestioned and unexplained. I wish for it to be a love inexplicable, beyond the realm of logic and reason. Emotions don’t see reason; they just drive all your actions straight. I don’t want to know why you do what you do to me. Don’t explain and put me to shame.

Don’t punctuate your expression of love with a dash. You’re either again trying to explain your emotions, or separating two clauses apart. I would hate for this to be associated with a symbolism for separation. You could hyphenate, yes. But let that be just our names together. And, let others call us with our joint name. Just don’t punctuate your expression of love with a dash. It’s discomforting and out of place.

Don’t punctuate your expression of love with a question mark, for reasons I would hate to explain. Don’t use an exclamation to punctuate it either, for what surprises you now may not be as amusing three days from now. Don’t punctuate your expression of love with an asterisk – like you’re explaining a mistake in the footnote of the biography you will write someday. And, don’t punctuate it with a tilde at all. It’s not an approximation of love that I seek.

Punctuate your expression of love with a period. It’s sure, deterministic, undoubted and unperturbed. Use a full stop and explain no further. Show me that the expression won’t change. I know that a period can be changed to an ellipsis and the course of the future may change. But in this moment, at this time, let the power of those three words remain.

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