you me love i

ahhhhh it still won't let me add spaces so here's the text version

i love you
i love you in the way heliophobics love gloom
i love you in the way a police chase loves broken highway barriers
i love you in the way a debtor loves amber bottles
i love you today
i will love you next tuesday

i love you in the way some people hate mirrors
i love you because i can’t distort you more than you’ve distorted me

i love you like insomniacs love melatonin
i love you because you’ve never worked but i keeping using anyways

i love you like car doors love little fingers
i love you because i have to run to my mother every time you make me cry

i love you in the way hockey player’s bodies slam into the boards
the way church bells ring on funeral days
the way satellites look like stars if you squint

but you loved me because
you loved me as if
you loved
you
loved
me

hey there sophiesangel!

I really like this!

I think it is simple in structure, but it's not simplistic in effect. The repetition works for me because each comparison corrupts the phrase a little more, moving it away from tenderness and toward the narrator's dependency on the other person. I think that it COULD be about love, but my perspective was more that the narrator may be in some kind of toxic relationship? Love and harm seem to blur together. The strongest comparisons, to me, are "a debtor loves amber bottles" and "hockey player’s bodies slam into the boards" because they understand that love is not always the glorious representation that people tend to gravitate towards, especially in poetry.

Though, the repetition is a little tricky. For the most part, it does escalate the poem: gloom to police chase to debt / addiction to mirrors to insomnia to family wound to funeral bells / satellites. HOWEVER, some lines explain the metaphor too directly after the image has already done its work? I enjoy the line "i love you because i have to run to my mother every time you make me cry" - however, it is less surprising than the car-door image before it. I'd say to lean into moments like that, perhaps not for the sake of dramatizing the poem BUT because it shows the underlying, more "gritty" side of love that you seem to be circling here.

I do love the ending here though! I would maybe sharpen the lines leading up to it, though, by deciding whether the beloved’s love is hollow, narcissistic, unfinished, or merely weaker than the speaker’s obsessive love - who are they? I found myself wondering more about their perspective on all of this, as I think the narrator here could be blinded by their own understanding of the relationship. How can you explore their dynamic further here? There is a lot of fragmentation -> I think more of that could work to create distance / explore the absurdity of the earlier imagery. I think you could push that more!

Very strong poem overall! You have A LOT here in so few lines!

best,
cocteau

Hi sophiesangel! Here to write a review on your wonderful poem!
I'll be using my own Watermelon Method of reviewing today!

Skin - Initial Observations
The title "you me love i" is disfigured and intriguing to begin with! I look forward to seeing how this ties into the context of the poem.
Repetition! At first glance, the repetition gives context that this poem is going to be emotional and very significant in terms of love, specifically, "i love you"

Rind - Interpretations
Love is not what it seems! You use dichotomies to express the conflicting back-and-forth and confusing feeling of love. You use images that are strong, clear, and don't make sense yet somehow do. Love is ironic, it's unclear, it goes against itself, it's perfect, and imperfect! The narrator is expressing such a complex emotion towards someone else, as if the narrator themselves are trying to make sense of this feeling.

Pulp - The Tastiest Part
I really enjoy the unique approach to language and metaphors in this poem! It shows love in a different context as usually seen in poetry, so I really found the disfigurement of love in this poem to be enjoyable as it acts as a fresh take on an emotion so commonly written about.
The ending ties with the poem because it's confusing in a way that doesn't disrupt the meaning of the entire poem!

Seeds - Critiques & Suggestions
My two suggestions deal with flow of the poem.

i love you today / i will love you next tuesday

the way church bells ring... / the way satellites look...