The Alexander 23 song “See You Later“, the first track of the album I’m Sorry I Love You released in 2019 is a song of poetry. The song “See You Later” expresses the difficulty of saying goodbye to someone you love, but it does not mean they are gone forever. Through his use of lyrics and first-person perspective, he deepens our understanding of what he feels because he puts us in the experience that he is going through, an experience that we can relate to by listening to the song.

I don’t want to go
But I can’t afford to miss this flight

This is the first line of the first verse. Throughout the whole song, Alexander 23 uses a first-person perspective. Using the first-person perspective allows us as the listeners to be part of the experience that he is going through of having to leave someone he cares for. He follows Perrines’s definition of poetry as Perrine states “Its function is not to tell us about an experience but to allow us to imaginatively participate in it”. He later writes in the chorus,

When we’re both crying
In this broke down elevator

Alexander 23 puts us in the experience that he is going through because we see the emotions that he is feeling and we are experiencing the journey and emotions with him. Not only do we experience it with him, but we feel what he is feeling and we can relate to that feeling.

Furthermore, Alexander 23 uses personification to exemplify the conflict and emotions that he is going through. We can see how is going through a hard time of having to leave the person he loves. Instead of just writing that, he uses what his heart is saying but what his legs are doing to represent the difficulties he is in. He writes;

Yeah, my heart says “Stay”
My legs are walking on their own

Finally, he uses an oxymoron, as he writes in the first verse, he contradicts himself by saying

Sometimes the only way to get over hurt is to hurt

However, by using this we can see that he is in pain and we see the struggles that he is going through. This line represents the meaning of how hard it is to say goodbye to someone but to get over that feeling, you can not push it away, you have to experience it.

Finally, he uses repetition of the line “see you later”. This is also the title of the song, but this line is repeated many times in the song, it emphasizes the meaning of the song, that it is so hard to see someone you love leave, but it doesn’t mean that they are gone forever, you will see them again.