I’m one of those old-fashioned people who puts a full-stop (period) at the end of a sentence when writing a text message or email. Most of my friends do not. For you who are shocked by this, no, they’re not illiterate, just caught-up in the impatience and laziness of these modern times.
It usually takes me at least three attempts to decipher the correct meaning of their messages and I’m often left confused:
“Hi Sharon I went to the dentist today got a tooth that hurts he looked at it and said nerve is dead man in waiting room was in pain so I let him go in before me a Labrador was in there also playing with a stick because his owner couldn’t see what have you done with that powder I need it back because I found a load of ants in my pants found that money I thought I’d lost another bout of rain coming I think.”
So, I sympathise with you if you’re one of those people who hate capitalised poetry, for similar reasons.
In order to help things flow, I tried taking away the capital from the first word in each line, but alas, it just didn’t look right to me. Therefore, apart from ‘Torture’ and ‘I’ll Believe in Anything’, I have reverted to the traditional way of penning prose with each line beginning with a large letter.
Hopefully, you will have a happy read and not be visually confused by me having used the original style.
LPW: Grab yourself a coffee
I struggle with patience. Patience goes hand in hand with self-control and therefore, when I am impatient, I cannot keep still and my mind wanders to a far-away land on the other side of the moon. If somebody is giving a testimony or I have an article to read, I expect it to be brief and succinct. In most cases, they aren’t. I begin to fidget and in my mind I am thinking, “Please get to the point!”
If you are a non-believer who considers all Christians to be hypocrites, I shall let you score a point on that one with me, because I simply cannot keep some poems short. Despite editing like crazy, if I’m trying to tell a story, sometimes it takes a good while before I get there, and thus, I thought it kind to warn you when you are about to encounter a rather lengthy piece of prose.
I originally placed the abbreviation, LPW (Long Poem Warning) after a poem title to indicate that it was lengthy, but then I realised that most of them are. Not all the chapters are succeeded by poetry, but when you see one at the bottom, this means that you may want to go grab a coffee and half a packet of cookies before you begin.
Alternatively, you could be shrewd and find someone to read it out aloud for you. In this case, I suggest you first bless them with a full glass of water and a cough sweet.
