Run on Sentences

Tue, 02/19/2019 - 21:53 -- katiega

I used to have problems writing as a kid because I didn't comprehend the function of punctuation. I remember my third-grade teacher instructing the class that a comma goes wherever you breathe and a period is the end of a thought. Easy. I started writing my story, I read every sentence out loud, reading as fast as I possibly could. Red in the face and gulping for air, I was determined to fit in every single detail. It was perfection...until I got my grade back. Red marks etched into the paper, where had I gone wrong? I did everything she told me to. I put commas where I needed to breathe and periods when I was done with a thought. I just never needed to breath and my thoughts never ended. The teacher didn't think that was a good enough excuse and told me all my sentences were run-ons.

I got the hang of periods and commas, but I still think of my third-grade teacher's advice occasionally. End a thought with a period. How do you ‘end’ a thought? Thoughts aren't linear, they don't stand alone, every thought I've ever thought is connected and based on the thought before it. It's impossible to break them up. My brain is a jumbled arrangement of fluid thoughts that spur other thoughts into motion, a chain reaction of seemingly random events that work as an infinite network of cause and effect.

When I allow myself to let loose and really start thinking it feels like my brain is going through time warps, dimensions of things that I can't follow. My head will start pulsing and my throat feels like its straining for air but my lungs have stopped working, anticipation floods my body and the world is ending, buildings are crashing down, walls are tumbling in on themselves and I wish I could just put a period at the end of it. But thoughts aren't third-grade English class, thoughts cant be contained with a period. Thoughts are run on sentences, compound sentences, comma splices, and sentence sprawls.

Thoughts don't follow grammar rules, they make the rules.

 

This poem is about: 
Me

Comments

Additional Resources

Get AI Feedback on your poem

Interested in feedback on your poem? Try our AI Feedback tool.
 

 

If You Need Support

If you ever need help or support, we trust CrisisTextline.org for people dealing with depression. Text HOME to 741741