Why I Dislike Exclamation Points

I found this one several years ago, and one thing in particular stuck in my mind ever since.

I Can’t Forget You.

Len Roberts

spray-painted high on the overpass, 
each letter a good foot long, 
and I try to picture the writer
hanging from a rope 
between midnight and dawn,
the weight of his love swaying,
making a trembling 
N and G, his mind at work 
with the apostrophe—
the grammar of loss— 
and his resistance to hyperbole,
no exclamation point
but a period at the end 
that shows a heart not given
to exaggeration, 
a heart that’s direct with a no-
fooling around approach, 
and I wonder if he tested the rope 
before tying it to the only tree I can see
that would bear his weight, 
or if he didn’t care about the free-
fall of thirty or more feet 
as he locked his wrist to form such
straight T’s, 
and still managed, dangling, to flex
for the C and G, 
knowing as he did, I’m sure, 
the lover would ride this way each day 
until she found a way around, 
a winding back road with trees
and roadside 
tiger lilies, maybe a stream, a
white house, white fence, 
a dog in the yard
miles 
from this black-letter, open-book
in-your-face missing 
that the rain or Turnpike road
crew 
will soon wash off.




What I can't forget is "and his resistance to hyperbole/no exclamation point/but a period at the end/that shows a heart not given/to exaggeration..."


For some reason, that sober, quiet realization has remained with me. I rarely use exclamation marks anyway, but I now had a reason to not overstate my case, to let my words speak for me without dictating to you how they needed to be read. 


I like that even in a desperate case like this, there can still be such a grace and thoughtfulness in a grand romantic gesture.