Quandry.

I'm conflicted. This morning I was told that I looked beautiful by a stranger. He was wearing a coat tied in the middle with string and was hunched protectively over a can of Special Brew (unnecessarily I feel as who has the wherewithal to steal 'premium lager' at 10am?).

Punctuation Stations

What makes me uncomfortable?
Tight jeans. Tentative silences....
Public performances.
But nothing makes me twitch and itch and shift in my seat
Like a BIG EMPTY SPACE where an apostrophe should be.
An involuntary spasm
For the missing punctuation,
Yes I care about the commas
(I also like alliteration).
I want to be
Swaddled by semicolons;
Hugged by hyphens -
A brought up short by a fat full stop.
Like notes on a score
These insignificant specks that tell words how to behave
Have made me their slightly obsessive slave.
The pleasure that I treasure
In the meter and the measure
Gets its confidence from colons
And brackets make it brave.