Six lines in a row begin with the same two words: "You say." It sounds like a list of promises being read back to the person who made them, and that is exactly what the speaker is doing. Priscilla's poem is about the gap between what someone claims to feel and what they actually do, in a relationship that seems to run largely through screens. Its central idea is simple and sharp: words are cheap, and love that never shows up in behaviour is hard to believe.
The first half works like an accusation turned inside out. Lines one to three complain about quantity. "Enough" appears three times, attached to texting, FaceTime and seeing a face. Then "enough" drops away and the lines move to feelings: "you love me," "you miss me," "you want to see me." The order matters. Frequency can be counted, but affection cannot, which makes it easier to declare and harder to check. The verb "say" does quiet work here, keeping every claim at arm's length as something spoken rather than something done. The speaker never confirms any of it.
Then comes the pivot: "But how can I believe you when." It is the poem's only question, and it ends with no punctuation, stranded on the word "when," so the reader has to drop into the next line to get the answer. After it, "say" disappears and the verbs become actions: "leave," "see," "tell," "ask." The evidence is blunt. "You leave me on 'read'" borrows the language of messaging apps, where a small notification confirms that a message was seen and ignored. The quotation marks around "read," "no" and "I love you's" make the speaker sound like a witness holding up exhibits, quoting the exact words and signals received.
Some of those exhibits contradict the opening. "You say you don't see my face enough" is followed by "You see me almost everyday," which suggests the complaint was never really about quantity. Then there is "You later tell me to slow down on the 'I love you's.'" The word "later" carries the sting. The declaration of love and the request for less of it come from the same person, only at different moments. The last line, "And you never once came out to see me," sets the poem's most absolute phrase, "never once," against the earlier "almost everyday." Judging by the wording, the daily sightings happen within some shared routine, while "came out" means making a deliberate effort, and that has not happened. That reading is an inference, but the contrast between the two lines is clear on the page.
The form supports the argument. This is free verse with no rhyme and no regular metre, and its short, flat, full-stopped lines read like a ledger of grievances. A rhyme scheme would have tidied the hurt into something songlike, and the poem refuses that. Almost every line starts with "you," so the other person dominates the grammar, while the speaker appears mostly as "me," the object of the verbs: left, seen, told. "I" turns up only twice, in "how can I believe" and "when I ask to talk." The speaker's only agency is to doubt and to ask. The final line begins with "And," like one more item added after the list should have ended, and the poem stops without a resolution. The title's ellipsis, "You Say...", is answered by the poem's central "But."
The poem matters because it takes a small, modern hurt, being left on read, and shows why it isn't trivial. The plain language makes the argument hard to dismiss. Its structure also mirrors its message. The first half is all talk and the second half is all evidence, so the poem enacts the difference between saying and doing. A reader doesn't need any special knowledge to recognise the feeling, which is why it lands.