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The Guy Who Always Called Me Love

 

the guy who always called me Love
is around town again
and has seen me
How are you, Love?
Up to you, Love.
It’s your life, Love
I want to keep going on
with being called Love
I want to be thrown Love
like a cushion of velvet
before you take a knife
and tear through it
looking for hidden drugs
you find the drugs
and you can’t do the drugs
it is like being named Crystal
but later in life
it would be great to know if Love
was like A way to say Sexy
or just another lean-to
another waitress’s Hun
I think it’d be better
if Love was a function
like a series of ballgowns
tried on in a bell jar
a corsage in the fridge
a corsage on your wrist
a corsage as a radio
and anytime you want
you can say
Love I don’t feel so good
Love I’m hit I’m down
Man Down
Love Man Down
I repeat Love
Man Down
Love I need to lie down
Love I lay down
or Love
send backup
Love there is danger
black SUV
take this down
one one six
nevermind
false alarm Love
over Love
roger Love
the suspect
has left the building Love
I repeat the suspect
has left the building
la la la
or if Love was laid out
like Abracadabra
so that anytime he said it
I’d fall in a hat




Halie Theoharides

levelheaded: The Guy Who Always Called Me Love

 

Halie Theoharides has so much love for us. In fact, the word “Love” repeats twenty one times throughout “The Guy Who Always Called Me Love” not including the “Love” in the title. That’s lots of Love. And any time such abundance of Love is successfully pressed into a single poem, we’re all in. We’re impressed. We’re entertained.

 

The italicized, implied quotes stand out and help set up the fun atmosphere. You can imagine the speaker telling the story to The Guy, answering this “How are you, Love?” question with perhaps more than The Guy asked for. He shrugs, it seems, as he answers “Up to you” and “It’s your life, Love.” Not knowing what the speaker is telling him, we enjoy filling in the blanks. We enjoy the rhythm too, which strikes us as having a we-real-cool-we-esque manner.

 

There’s a story being told starting with the knife and the hidden drugs, and ending with the black SUV, and the suspect leaving the building. Seems like a crime story is woven into the poem, perhaps creating a mock-film-noir atmosphere, or just having fun telling a story in hints while Love is all around. But to us, most attractive are the parts where the poet takes on the word Love, which surely at this point should have lost its weight to colloquial use, and still finds intriguing contemplative angles to look at it.

 

We agree, “it would be great to know if Love / was like A way to say Sexy.” Is the speaker called “Love” in a flirty manner, or is it a somewhat belittling expression, like a “sweetie” or a “kid”?  We’re also intrigued by the speaker thinking “it’d be better / if Love was a function / like a series of ballgowns / tried on in a bell jar.” This unexpected, surreal image, catches us by surprise and leaves us thinking.

 

Speaking of leaving us thinking, look at how the poem ends: with a spell and reversed magic, where instead of a bunny coming out of a hat, the speaker may fall in. This time, what do you know, Love is just “it” as in “anytime he said it / I’d fall in a hat.” And even though more than twenty Loves were spread around us, we’re left thinking of who this “he” is, and how the speaker actually feels about him. Is she wishing or dreading falling into the dark hat? Will she be able to break out of The Guy’s magic? What we’re taking with us is this: there are so many different types of Love, even just from a linguistic standpoint. We can’t fully dissect the word into anything meaningful or stable. So what’s left is the fun part: juggle the words along, add some spice, enjoy your burrito.

 

 

– The Editors