Interpretation of the poem "It's not you it's me" by the poet: me!

All this time here I thought

Love's left my premises, abandoned me

Turns out "it's not you it's me"

Whose forgotten you:to love

If “love” is perceived as the loved one or as one’s lover, then this poem is about a break-up. With the departure of the loved person, one realizes that it was one’s own fault since one has forgotten either the person or how to love that person. However, if “love” is perceived as the feeling of love, it’s about self-awareness. Thus; “you” refers to love not to a person. One realizes that forgetting love (or how to love) is the reason why one doesn’t have any love in one’s life.

“All this time here I thought” can be read two ways: either as “all this time, here I thought” or as “all this time here, I thought”. The first one emphasizes the time, the location is not important. It shows the time has been spent (or lost!) thinking otherwise. The latter way of reading on the other hand points out the significance of the location; “here” refers to the “premises” mentioned in the next line. These two separate meanings call attention to how time and location can be interchangeable when one is lost in one’s thoughts.

The word “whose” – which sounds like who’s – in the last line has more meaning to it than being a sound-based word play; it allows “me” to possess “you”: loved person or love belongs to one. Also, this last line is missing a verb merely to show that something (person/love) has been forgotten and thus something seems incomplete like the sentence itself.

Beril
18/05/10