open sesame — Summary

sageRomantic

don't say you love me if you think i am a secret passage that'll open with the right words

Show the whole poemHide the poem

Learn Poems app

Try the Learn Poems app

Everything from the website trainer, and more: new exercises, voice recording and sharing, reminders, quick review.

The speaker is warning someone against a shallow kind of love. The subtitle, "open sesame," points to the fairy-tale password that makes a hidden cave swing open. The speaker refuses to be that cave. If the other person thinks love is a matter of finding the right phrase, the right compliment, the right move, then they haven't understood who they're talking to.

The feeling here is guarded but not cold. There's some hurt in it, and a firm kind of self-respect. The speaker wants to be known, not unlocked. The poem's shape helps make the point: the last lines break apart one word at a time, "open / with the / right / words," so the words themselves seem to drip down the page, slow and a little mocking. The mood is quiet, wary and direct, a plain request to be taken seriously as a whole person rather than a puzzle to be solved.

Read also

More by sage

All poems
Sadsage

untruths

when you say you love me more, i sigh. i know it's not true. because what would happen if i stopped caring about perfection. made more money than y o u.
Contemplativesage

5:40 pm

the pitter-pattered fingers of the rain the cries of thunder the now smiling plants are- - - - - - - - - home.