All's fair in love and poetry, but mostly poetry. Whether for captions, for comments or for referenced writings, here are some of the best lines when it comes to Taylor Swift's 11th era album: "The Tortured Poets Department." Let the lyrical games begin.

'Fortnight' (ft. Post Malone)

• "I was supposed to be sent away, but they forgot to come and get me."
• "Now you're in my backyard, turned into good neighbors. Your wife orders flowers. I want to kill her."
• "All my mornings are Mondays stuck in an endless February."
• "I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary."
• "And I love you, it's ruining my life."

'Tortured Poets' release live updates:What to know as Taylor Swift's new album debuts

'The Tortured Poets Department'

• "You left your typewriter at my apartment, straight from the Tortured Poets Department."
• "I laughed in your face and said, 'You're not Dylan Thomas, I'm not Patti Smith. This ain't the Chelsea Hotel. We're modern idiots."
• "Who's gonna hold you like me? Nobody."
• "We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist."
• "I scratch your head, you fall asleep like a tattooed, golden retriever."
• "At dinner, you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on, and that’s the closest I’ve come to my heart exploding."

'My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys'

• "I'm the queen of sand castles he destroys."
• "'Cause it fit too right, puzzle pieces in the dead of night."
• "There was a litany of reasons why we could've played for keeps this time. I know I'm just repeating myself. Put me back on my shelf. But first, pull the string."
• "Once I fix me, he's gonna miss me."
• "I felt more when he played pretend than with all the Kens 'cause he took me out of box, stole my tortured heart, left all these broken parts."

'Down Bad'

• "Did you really beam me up? In a cloud of sparkling dust, just to do experiments on, tell me I was the chosen one, show me that this world is bigger than us, then sent me back where I came from?"
• "For a moment I knew cosmic love, now I'm down bad crying at the gym. Everything comes out teenage petulance."
• "Did you take home my old clothes? Just to leave me here naked and alone, in a field in my same old town, that somehow seems so hollow now?"
• "I'll build you a fort on some planet where they can all understand it. How dare you think it's romantic leaving me safe and stranded."

'So Long, London'

• "I kept calm and carried the weight of the rift, pulled him in tighter each time he was drifting away. My spine split from carrying us up the hill, wet through my clothes, weary bones caught the chill."
• "I didn't opt in to be your odd man out. I founded the club she's heard great things about."
• "I stopped CPR, after all, it's no use. The spirit was gone, we will never come to. And I'm p***ed off you let me give you all that youth for free."
• "For so long London, stitches undone, two graves, one gun, I’ll find someone."
• "You swore that you loved me but where were the clues? I died on the alter waiting for the proof."
• "And I’m just getting color back into my face. I’m just mad as hell 'cause I loved this place."

'But Daddy I Love Him'

• "Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best. Clutching their pearls, sighing, 'What a mess.' I just learned these people try and save you 'cause they hate you."
• "I’m telling him to floor it through the fences. No, I’m not coming to my senses. I know it’s crazy but he’s the one I want."
• "He was chaos, he was revelry. Bedroom eyes like a remedy."
• "'Stay away from her,' the saboteurs protested too much. Lord knows the words we never heard, just screeching tires and true love."
• "I’ll tell you something about my good name, it’s mine alone to disgrace. I don’t cater to all these vipers dressed in empath's clothing."
• "God save the most judgmental creeps who say they want what’s best for me, sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I’ll never see."
• "If all you want is gray for me, then it’s just white noise, and it’s just my choice."

'Fresh Out the Slammer'

• "Rollin' thunder, he don't understand me. Splintered back in winter, silent dinners, bitter. He was with her in dreams."
• "Camera flashes, welcome bashes, get the matches, toss the ashes off the ledge."
• "All those nights you kept me going, swirled you into all of my poems. Now we're at the starting line, I did my time."
• "Ain’t no way I’m gonna screw up, now that I know what’s at stake here."

'Florida!!!' (ft. Florence + The Machine)

• "And this city reeks of driving myself crazy."
• "Little did you know, your home's really only a town you’re just a guest in. So you work your life away just to pay for a timeshare down in Destin…"
• "And the hurricane with my name, when it came. I got drunk and I dared it to wash me away. Barricaded in the bathroom with a bottle of wine. Well, me and my ghosts, we had a hell of a time."
• "And you're cheating husband disappeared, well no one asks any questions here."
• "So I did my best to lay to rest all of the bodies that have ever been on my body. And in my mind, they sink into a swamp. Is that a bad thing to say in a song?"

'Guilty as Sin?'

• "My boredom’s bone-deep. This cage was once just fine. Am I allowed to cry?"
• "I dream of cracking locks, throwing my life to the wolves or the ocean rocks. Crashing into him tonight, he's a paradox. I'm seeing visions, am I bad? Or mad? Or wise?"
• "What if he’s written 'mine' on my upper thigh only in my mind?"
• "Without ever touching his skin, how can I be guilty as sin?"
• "I keep these longings locked in lowercase, inside a vault. Someone told me there’s no such thing as bad thoughts. Only your actions talk.'"
• "If it’s make-believe, why does it feel like a vow we’ll both uphold somehow?"
• "My bedsheeets are ablaze, I've screamed his name. Building up like waves crashing over my grave."
• "Am I allowed to cry?"

'Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?'

• "You don’t get to tell me about 'sad.'"
• "So I leap from the gallows, and I levitate down your street. Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream, 'Who’s afraid of little old me?'”
• "The scandal was contained, the bullet had just grazed at all costs, keep your good name."
• "I was tame, I was gentle 'til the circus life made me mean. Don’t you worry, folks, we took out all her teeth."
• "I want to snarl and show you just how disturbed this has made me. You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me."
• "I’m always drunk on my own tears, isn’t that what they all said? That I’ll sue you if you step on my lawn. That I’m fearsome, and I’m wretched, and I’m wrong. Put narcotics into all of my songs. And that’s why you still singing along."

'I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)'

• "The smoke cloud billows out his mouth like a freight train through a small town. The jokes that he told across the bar were revolting and far too loud."
• "The dopamine races through his brain on a six-lane Texas highway. His hand, so callous from his pistol softly traces hearts on my face."
• "Good boy, that’s right. Come close, I’ll show you heaven. If you’ll be an angel all night. Trust me, I can handle me a dangerous man. No really I can."
• "I can fix him, no really I can. Whoa, maybe I can’t."

'loml'

• "We embroidered the memories of the time I was away, stitching, "We were just kids, babe."
• "I thought I was better safe than starry-eyed. I felt aglow like this, never before and never since."
• "When your Impressionist paintings of Heaven turned out to be fakes. Well, you took me to hell too. And all at once, the ink bleeds. A conman sells a fool a get-love-quick scheme."
• "You sh**-talked me under the table, talking rings and talking cradles. I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all."
• "Dancing phantoms on the terrace, are they second-hand embarrassed that I can’t get out of bed 'cause something counterfeit’s dead?"

'I Can Do It With a Broken Heart'

• "I can read your mind, "She’s having the time of her life." There in her glittering prime the lights refract sequin stars off her silhouette every night. I can show you lies."
• "They said, 'Babe, you gotta fake it 'til you make it and I did."
• "Lights, camera, b**** smile."
• "I cry a lot, but I am so productive. It's an art."
• "All the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting, "More!" I was grinning like I’m winning. I was hitting my marks 'cause I can do it with a broken heart."
• "Try and come for my job."

'The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived'

• "Gazing at me starry-eyed in your Jehovah's Witness suit. Who the f*** was that guy?"
• "You tried to buy some pills from a friend of friends of mine. They just ghosted you. Now you know what it feels like."
• "And I don’t miss what we had, but could someone give a message to the smallest man who ever lived?"
• "You hung me on your wall, stabbed me with your push pins. In public, showed me off, then sank in stoned oblivion."
• "You didn’t measure up in any measure of a man."
• "In 50 years will all this be declassified? And you’ll confess why you did it? And I'll say, 'Good riddance.'"
• "You deserve prison, but you won’t get time. You’ll slide into inboxes and slip through the bars. You crashed my party and your rental car."

'The Alchemy'

• "So when I touch down, call the amateurs and cut 'em from the team. Ditch the clowns, get the crown, baby I’m the one to beat."
• "'Cause the sign on your heart said it’s still reserved for me. Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy?"
• "I haven't come around in so long, but I'm making a comeback to where I belong."
• "He jokes that it’s heroin but this time with an 'E'."
• "Where's the trophy? He just comes running over to me."

'Clara Bow'

• "This town is fake, but you’re the real thing. Breath of fresh air through smoke rings."
• "Crowd goes wild at her fingertips, half moonshine, a full eclipse."
• "The crown is stained, but you’re the real queen. Flesh and blood amongst war machines. You’re the new god we’re worshipping. Promise to be dazzling."
• "Beauty is a beast that roars down on all fours demanding, "More."
• "You look like Taylor Swift in this light, we’re loving it. You’ve got edge she never did. The future’s bright, dazzling."

'The Black Dog'

• "I am someone who until recent events you shared with your secrets with and your location, you forgot to turn it off."
• "Old habits die screaming."
• "I move through the world with a heart broken. My longings stay unspoken and I may never open up the way I did for you and all of those best laid plans."
• "Do you hate me? Was it hazing for a cruel fraternity I pledged."
• "Now I wanna sell my house and set fire to all my clothes and hire a priest to come and exorcize my demons, even if I die screaming."

'imgonnagetyouback'

• "Whether I'm gonna be your wife or gonna smash up your bike, I haven't decided yet but I'm gonna get you back."
• "I hear the whispers in your eyes. I'll make you wanna think twice."
• "I'm an Aston Martin that you steered straight into the ditch. Then ran and hid."
• "Whether I'm gonna flip you off or pull you into the closet, I haven't decided yet but I'm gonna get you back."
• "Push the reset button, we're becoming something new."
• "Pick your poison, babe. I'm poison either way."

The Albatross

• "A rose by any other name is a scandal."
• "Cross your thoughtless heart only liquor anoints you. She's the albatross. She is here to destroy you."
• "Devils that you know raise worse hell than a stranger."
• "She's the death you chose you're in terrible danger."
• "Wise men once read fake news and they believed it. Jackals raised their hackles you couldn't conceive it."
• "The devil that you know looks now more like an angel."

'Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus'

• "Your hologram stumbled into my apartment hands in the hair of somebody in darkness."
• "As the decade would play us for fools and you saw my bones out with somebody new who seemed like he would've bullied you in school and you just watched it happen."
• "If you want to break my cold, cold heart just say, 'I loved you the way that you were.'"
• "You said some things that I can't unabsorb. You turned me into an idea of sorts. You needed me, but you needed drugs more and I couldn't watch it happen."
• "I changed into goddesses, villains, and fools. Changed plans and lovers and outfits and rules. All to outrun my desertion of you. And you just watched it."
• "If the glint in my eye traced the depths of your sigh down that passage in time. Back to the moment I crashed into you, like so many wrecks do, too impaired by my youth to know what to do."

'How Did It End?'

• "We hereby conduct this post mortem."
• "Come one, come all, it's happening again. The empathetic hunger descends. We'll tell no one except all of our friends. We must know how did it end?"
• "We learned the right steps to different dances."
• "Lost the game of chance, what are the chances?"
• "Say it once again with feeling how the death rattle breathing silenced as the soul was leaving the deflation of our dreaming."
• "My beloved ghost and me sitting in a tree D-Y-I-N-G."

'So High School'

• "I feel so high school every time I look at you."
• "I want to find you in a crowd just to hide from you."
• "Are you gonna marry, kiss, or kill me? Kill me. It's just a game, but really, really, I'm betting on all three for us two."
• "You know how to ball, I know Aristotle, brand new, full throttle. Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto. It's true, swear, scouts honor. You knew what you wanted, and, boy, you got her."
• "Cheeks pink in the twinklin' lights tell me 'bout the first time you saw me. I'll drink what you think and I'm high from smokin' your jokes all damn night."

'I Hate It Here'

• "Quick, quick tell me something awful like you are a poet trapped inside the body of a finance guy."
• "Tell me all your secrets. All you'll ever be is. My eternal consolation prize."
• "I hate it here so I will go to secret gardens in my mind people need a key to get to. The only one is mine."
• "My friends used to play a game where we would pick a decade we wished we could live in instead of this. I'd say the 1830s but without all the racists and getting married off for the highest bid."
• "I'm lonely, but I'm good. I'm bitter, but I swear I'm fine. I'll save all my romanticism for my inner life and I'll get lost on purpose."
• "Lucid dreams like electricity, the current flies through me and in my fantasies I rise above it. And way up there, I actually love it."

'thanK you aIMee'

• "When I picture my hometown there's a bronze, spray-tanned statue of you. And a plaque underneath it that threatens to push me down the stairs at our school."
• "But I dreamed that one day I could say all that time you were throwin' punches, I was buildin' somethin'. And I can't forgive the way you made me feel."
• "And then she wrote headlines in the local paper laughing at each baby step I'd take."
• "Everyone knows that my mother is a saintly woman but she used to say she wished that you were dead."
• "I wrote a thousand songs that you find uncool. I built a legacy that you can't undo. But when I count the scars there's a moment of truth. That there wouldn't be this if there hadn't been you."
• "And so I changed your name and any real defining clues. And one day your kid comes home singing a song that only us two is gonna know is about you."
• "Screamed, 'thanK you aIMee' to the night sky and the stars are stunnin' 'cause I can't forget the way you made me heal."

'I Look in People's Windows'

• "Northbound I got carried away as you boarded your train south, south, south, south, south, south."
• "I look in people's windows in case you're at their table. What if your eyes looked up and met mine one more time."
• "I'm addicted to the 'if only.'"
• "I look in people's windows like I'm some deranged weirdo. I attend Christmas parties from the outside."

'The Prophecy'

• "I got cursed like Eve got bitten."
• "I guess a lesser woman would've lost hope. A greater woman wouldn't beg. But I looked to the sky and said, 'Please, I've been on my knees. Change the prophecy.'"
• "Don't want money just someone who wants my company. Let it once be me. Who do I have to speak to about if they can redo the prophecy?"
• "Slow is the quicksand. Poison blood from the wound of the pricked hand. Oh, still I dream of him."
• "And I look unstable gathered with a coven round a sorceress' table. A greater woman has faith but even statues crumble if they're made to wait."
• "I'm just a paperweight in shades of greige. Spending my last coin so someone will tell me it'll be okay."

'Cassandra'

• "When the first stone's thrown there's screamin.' In the streets there's a ragin' riot. When it's, 'Burn the b****," they're shrieking. When the truth comes out it's quiet."
• "So they filled my cell with snakes, I regret to say "Do you believe me now?'"
• "I was in my tower weaving nightmares, twisting all my smiles into snarls. They say what doesn't kill you makes you aware. What happens if it becomes who you are?"
• "Blood's thick, but nothin' like a payroll. Bet they never spared a prayer for my soul."
• "When the truth comes out it's quiet. It's so quiet."

'Peter'

• "The goddess of timing once found us beguiling. She said she was trying. Peter, was she lying?"
• "Words from the mouths of babes, promises oceans deep. But never to keep."
• "And sometimes it gets me when crossing your jet stream. We both did the best we could do underneath the same moon in different galaxies."
• "'Cause love's never lost when perspective is earned."
• "Forgive me, Peter, please know that I tried to hold onto the days when you were mine. But the woman who sits by the window has turned out the light."

'The Bolter'

• "Splendidly selfish, charmingly helpless, excellent fun till you get to know her then she runs like it's a race."
• "Behind her back, her best mates laughed and they nicknamed her The Bolter."
• "All her f***in' lives flashed before her eyes. It feels like the time she fell through the ice then came out alive."
• "What a charming Saturday that's when she sees the littlest leaks down in the floorboards. And she just knows, she must bolt."
• "She's been many places with men of many faces. First they're off to the races and she's laughing drawing acces. But none of it is changin' that the chariot is waitin.' Hearts are hers for the breakin.' There's escape in escaping."

'Robin'

• "Strings tied to levers, slowed-down clocks tethered, all this showmanship to keep it for you."
• "Long may you roar at your dinosaurs. You're a just ruler. Covered in mud, you look ridiculous and you have no idea."
• "Buried down deep and out of your reach the secret we all vowed to keep it from you in sweetness."
• "You have no room in your dreams for regrets."
• "You'll learn to bounce back just like your trampoline, but now we'll curtail your curiosity in sweetness."

'The Manuscript'

• "He said that if the sex was half as good as the conversation was soon they'd be pushing strollers, but soon it was over."
• "And the years passed like scenes of a show. The professor said to write what you know.
• "Looking backwards might be the only way to move forward."
• "The only thing that's left is the manuscript. One last souvenir from my trip to your shores. Now and then I re-read the manuscript. But the story isn't mine anymore."

Don't miss any Taylor Swift news; sign up for the free, weekly newsletter "This Swift Beat."

Follow Taylor Swift reporter Bryan West on Instagram, TikTok and X as @BryanWestTV.