Full Stop.

It's true: we've co-authored a masterpiece.
Our imagery, our perfect symmetry
can't be matched - we moved
as one entity, attached for so long.
My pen was your pen, and we wrote
in sync; my ink - your ink.

Beautifully, carefully, we crafted
the climax - the choreography exact
for a flawless closing paragraph...
Yet, when it came to that final sentence,
you got cold feet, kept grasping the pen
because your life depended on it.

We attempted a full stop. I made the dot,
but you flicked it into a comma,
we both paused to reconsider.
Trying again, you knocked
my hand and I scrawled a dash –
then you dragged out an ellipsis...

Frustrated, I tried to go it alone,
write another best-seller.
But it was an abrupt, slim volume -
no chart-topper. I came back to find
your scribbling ready to burst
into a rambling epilogue.

Now, finally, I’m putting my foot down:
enough! I snatch away your pen.
What we've written is wonderful -
we can't ruin it now. It's time to start over.
So I stamp it down; the gunshot,
the chop - the full stop.

Now we're ready for another adventure -
a move into a different genre; a new world,
a new book... and a new chapter.