The title of “The Tortured Poets Department” seemed to hint that Taylor Swift is still hung up on Joe Alwyn, and as Swifties listen to songs such as “Fortnight” and “LOML,” they’re discovering that their idol has, indeed, dropped another breakup album. Swift announced that “TTPD” was coming as she displayed more and more signs that her relationship with Travis Kelce was getting serious, so it seemed possible that “LOML” was about her discovering that the Kansas City Chiefs tight end just might be the one. But while one might assume that “LOML” stands for “Love of My Life,” the title is a clever misdirect.

Swift’s use of an acronym conveys an untroubled attitude; we don’t usually use text speak when addressing heavy topics such as heartbreak. Rather, it seems like a term of endearment Swift might playfully use for a lover. Instead, over meditative piano music, listeners hear the singer reminisce about a lost love hard to replicate (Sorry, Trav). “I felt a glow like this, never before and never since,” she sings. She also uses a fresh, imaginative way to describe love at first sight: “If you know it in one glimpse, it’s legendary / You and I go from one kiss to getting married.” She revisits her lyric about how her lover made her radiate happiness when describing the anguish of losing him. Altering just one word changes it from blissful to sorrowful: “I felt a hole like this, never before and ever since.”

What the song’s title really means

Buda Mendes/tas23/Getty Images
“LOML” ends with the true mournful meaning of its title’s four letters. “I’ll still see until I die / You’re the loss of my life,” Swift sings. But while many of the lyrics make it seem that she’s engaging in some bittersweet reflection on a great love who was without fault in her eyes, she also reveals that she feels like he deceived her. There’s an indication that she knew her lover was trouble when he walked in, but he fooled her into thinking that he had changed. “[You] told me I reformed you,” Swift recalls, “when your impressionist paintings of heaven turned out to be fakes.” She further accuses her lover of treachery with the line, “A con man sells a fool a ‘get love quick’ scheme.”

Some of Swift’s thoughts about her ex are a bit contradictory. She seems to believe that she was being misled when he made promises to her about getting married and starting a family, as evidenced by the lyric, “You s**t-talked me under the table / Talking rings and talking cradles.” However, at a different point in the song, she suggests that she and her lover both believed they had something that would last. “What we thought was for all time was momentary,” she sings. But that’s the nature of love — it’s confusing, and it’s sometimes hard to discern the truth from the lies when deeply felt emotions, both good and bad, are involved.