Emotional Warfare: Denial and Destruction in “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys”

On the power of a really good extended metaphor.

When someone you love hurts you, it can be hard to look past the love to see the situation for what it truly is. Taylor Swift explores this phenomenon in “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” from The Tortured Poets Department. In an album spanning a multitude of topics and musical styles, this track is a deceptively upbeat defense of a romantic partner’s toxic behavior. The entirety of the song operates in a world of extended metaphor, in which the speaker’s partner is a child and she is his once-beloved toy that he has broken. Swift uses this analogy to skillfully explore this emotional imbalance from the viewpoint of someone justifying her partner’s mistreatment of her out of love and a fear of losing the relationship.

Midnight Rain

The first verse opens with “here we go again,” the cynical recognition of a cyclical issue for the speaker, either in this relationship or in general: “The voices in his head / Called the rain to end our days of wild.” Throughout the song, the speaker makes excuses for her partner’s behavior, here personifying the “voices” such that they operate beyond his control. His mental health became an unmanageable problem, leading to the downfall of their relationship.¹ Swift uses the image of “the rain” to further externalize the blame—this weather element lies in direct contrast to the sunlight and “Daylight” that she has often referenced to symbolize love. Interestingly, in “Midnight Rain” and in “peace,” the rain is associated with the speaker instead of the muse. The pattern that thus emerges is Swift’s use of rain as a symbol for mental health issues, marking a drastic change from the romanticization of the rain in her early work.² The phrase “days of wild” could simply mean happiness and excitement in the relationship, but it could also be a reference to the Prince song. “Days of Wild” was performed live for four years before a studio recording was released. If this is an intentional reference, it could denote that the relationship described here was filled with energy, vibrancy, and happiness, but existed in a state of fragility or impermanence before being cut short.

The speaker introduces herself as her partner’s toy: “The sickest army doll / Purchased at the mall / Rivulets descend my plastic smile.” The double meaning of “sickest” establishes both the speaker’s guise of confidence and her vulnerability, which summarizes her perspective throughout the song. The fact that she is an “army doll” is a further point of juxtaposition—she is dressed up in a soldier’s uniform but it’s all framed as a childish game so that she can downplay the stakes at hand. The speaker doesn’t specify whether she is fighting against her partner or for their relationship, which points to the conflation of her emotions.³ The word “[p]urchased” applies a transactional element to the relationship and “the mall” suggests an ordinariness that together render the speaker a commodity. A doll has no agency, so despite the tears running down her face, beyond her control, her “plastic smile” remains. She is fixed in this artificial position of complacency and happiness. Moreover, she traps herself in this lighthearted attitude toward sadness with the AAB rhyme scheme in this verse that is reminiscent of a nursery rhyme.

The subsequent lyric tries to reframe the relationship in a positive light: “But you should’ve seen him when he first got me.” This sentiment and desperation to prove the partner’s virtue contradicts all the negative observations the speaker has just made. She overemphasizes the fact that he once really loved her, that he used to be interested when she was a shiny and new toy. The verb “got” highlights his possession of her, which she unexpectedly treats as something positive, now that he no longer “plays” with her. She defends his current toxic behavior by pointing the listener to a past that is gone.

Your One and Only

In the upbeat chorus, the speaker sums up her core argument, based in pure denial of the relationship ending: “My boy only breaks his favorite toys, toys, oh / I’m queen of sand castles he destroys.” The sing-songy melody leans into the childish perspective as the speaker finds a way to make her negative situation positive. Her partner’s ownership of her is deemed reciprocal with the possessive “[m]y boy.” Moreover, she uses the pain she experiences to make herself feel special with the word “only,” suggesting that he only hurts her because he cares so much. Swift’s extended metaphor is so effective in illustrating how someone might hold this illogical belief: it’s always the “favorite toys” that get used the most, and the descriptor “well-loved” refers to a toy in bad shape. From this perspective—which really only works with inanimate objects—the fact that the speaker is broken is a sign of how much her partner loves her. She then elevates her status to power and royalty by calling herself a “queen,” but the position is actually inconsequential since he “destroys” her “sand castles.” The speaker keeps herself in this world of childlike play with a false sense of control and importance in the downfall of her relationship. The boy could stomp on a sand castle or water could wash it away,⁴ but it is also difficult to build a sand castle with structural integrity in the first place due to the material’s texture.

She then turns to cynicism and past negative experiences as an alternative justification: “‘Cause it fit too right, puzzle pieces in the dead of night / I should’ve known it was a matter of time.” The first line tells us that, from the speaker’s point of view, there was nothing wrong with the relationship. If anything, it was “too right,” which shouldn’t be a problem, but she still refuses to hold her partner accountable. Instead, she blames herself and the fact that she let her guard down for him, asserting that she “should’ve known” it would go wrong. The phrase “dead of night” also adds an eerie silence that encompasses the underlying tension between them, even when they appeared happy.

Like a Broken Record

The second verse has an entirely new melody and quicker-paced lyrics that the speaker uses to distract from the words sinking in: “There was a litany of reasons why / We could’ve played for keeps this time / I know I’m just repeating myself.” The word “litany” indicates that there were many “reasons” to fight for the relationship, but its negative connotation implies that no one wanted to hear out the speaker’s argument. Her defensive language here and in the phrase “I know” shows an expectation of being dismissed—this has happened before. In fact, the inclusion of “this time” confirms that the relationship had ended before, but she still maintains hope despite the cyclical pattern. Indeed, the speaker is “repeating [her]self” as she makes the same desperate argument throughout the song, but she is also repeating her past behavior. In addition, this lyric brings us back to the extended metaphor as Swift renders the speaker a talking doll that literally repeats the same phrase on a loop.

In this section, each line carries a thought forward to the next, leaving no space to process their contents: “Put me back on my shelf / But first, pull the string / And I’ll tell you that he runs / Because he loves me.” By comparing herself to a talking doll programmed to say one specific phrase, the speaker acknowledges the insincerity of her argument all while begging for external validation. This is an interesting moment in the song where she directly addresses and involves the listener, which serves as a reminder that there is an unspecified third figure in this story. She asks the listener to return her to her “shelf” where she belongs so that she’ll be there for her partner whenever he wants her again; even after everything she has described, she’s still concerned about what he thinks of her. In a feat of meta-songwriting, Swift also uses the “pull the string” moment to reference the song as a whole, demonstrating that the speaker has been programmed to relay this illogical message in musical form. Her will to believe that he still loves her perseveres: “‘Cause you should’ve seen him when he first saw me.” This repeated lyric contains the small change from “got” to “saw,” which adds a romanticized allusion to love at first sight.

She Knew Too Much

The second half of the second chorus introduces new lyrics: “‘Cause I knew too much, there was danger in the heat of my touch / He saw forever, so he smashed it up.” The speaker explores a new factor in the dissolution of the relationship, this time centered on the power she acquired as they got to know each other. The phrase “knew too much” is often used to justify harming someone, so Swift applies it here to the romantic context of the partner’s instinct to push people away. Their emotional intimacy became something that he feared, the “heat” acquiring an element of “danger.” When the speaker tried to get closer to him it had the opposite effect, resulting in a figurative fire that was destructive rather than exciting.⁵ His response to this glimpse of “forever” was to ruin it.⁶ The speaker characterizes her partner as someone who sabotages his own relationships for no reason besides a fear of commitment and emotional intimacy.

Despite the previous glimpse of self-confidence, the speaker quickly reverts to her tragic line of thinking: “Once I fix me / He’s gonna miss me.” This sentiment rests on an assumption that the only reason that her partner is not currently with her is because of what he did to her, and that she can “fix” the damage that he caused. The speaker is willing to compromise her own happiness and do all the work on the relationship in an effort to remain desirable. She is still living in denial and hoping that, all on her own, she can restore something that has been irreparably lost. The simplicity of this statement also undeniably confronts the listener with this sad reality.

Hits Different

The bridge, which also acts as an outro, contains the speaker’s final attempt to hold on to the relationship, explaining the cognitive dissonance of why she’s finding it so difficult to let go: “Just say when, I’d play again / He was my best friend down at the sandlot.” Even though he doesn’t deserve it, she’ll keep forgiving him because he was her “best friend.” As a doll sitting on the shelf with her life on hold, she would do anything for the validation of being wanted by him, to “play again.” Losing a romantic partner and “best friend” at the same time has proven too painful for her to bear. Nevertheless, since the speaker is a toy, she wouldn’t have much choice in who her friends are; rather, her whole world would be defined by whoever chose to play with her. The extended metaphor thus also suggests that she was too emotionally dependent on her partner for the relationship to handle. Within the setting of the “sandlot,” which refers back to the “sand castles,” a child can build and create worlds that they control.

This, and the following lyrics, marks a strong connection to “Hits Different”: “I felt more when we played pretend / Than with all the Kens.” In the Midnights track, the speaker claims that “the sand hurts [her] feelings” after a breakup, and she “used to switch out these Kens.” Swift uses the same details to illustrate the strong emotions felt in both songs. The speaker’s reference to Ken dolls aligns with the toy metaphor again and serves to contrast her partner with other meaningless interchangeable men. She “felt more” with him because he was a real person with the ability to get through to her truer emotions, even if it was “pretend.” They were both involved in the game and “played pretend” together, perhaps imagining a fulfilling relationship that was ultimately unsustainable.

The speaker’s partner was different from her previous love interests: “‘Cause he took me out of my box / Stole my tortured heart / Left all these broken parts / Told me I’m better off / But I’m not.” Being “out of [her] box” exposed her to the real world and new experiences that she previously felt sheltered from. There are two primary reasons for keeping a toy in its box: either to protect it from damage and keep it in mint condition or because it’s been abandoned and never played with in the first place. Either way, the speaker feels grateful for her experiences with this partner, even if their reckless behavior resulted in her pain. She implies that her “heart” was already “tortured” before their relationship; these previous emotional hardships had put her back in her protective box. Without her “heart,” she is just an amalgamation of “broken parts,” a broken toy that the boy has abandoned without trying to fix. Instead, he said she was “better off” without him, his own insecurities convincing him that he is doing her a favor by leaving, but significant damage has already been done.

In these last few lines of the bridge, the speaker finally admits that the reality of the situation has gotten to her and that her partner is to blame. The fact that there is no final return to the chorus indicates a shift in her perspective towards defeat. She stops making excuses for him and is ready to move on from denial to the next stage of grief; the following track on TTPD, “Down Bad,” showcases both anger and sadness. Following fan speculation, Swift also leaned into the five stages of grief in the marketing leading up to the release of the album, where she sorted her previous music into these different categories. In keeping with that system, “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” can be understood as encapsulating the concentrated emotions of this specific experience. While the speaker is in denial about the loss of her relationship, she comes to discover that she should be grieving the loss of herself instead.

1. Swift also explores the toll that a partner's mental illness can take on a relationship in "Renegade": "Is it really your anxiety that stops you / From giving me everything / Or do you just not want to?"

2. Examples include “Sparks Fly,” “Come In With the Rain,” “The Way I Loved You,” and “If This Was a Movie.”

3. Swift has used similar military imagery to describe romantic relationships in other songs, including "You're Losing Me," "The Great War," and "ivy."

4. This links back to the rain as a destructive force again.

5. There is another connection to an "ivy" lyric here: "it's a fire / It's a goddamn blaze in the dark."

6. This violent reaction to the notion of settling down is again reminiscent of "You're Losing Me": "I wouldn't marry me either / A pathological people pleaser." In many ways, the smiling doll in this song is a similar figure to that speaker.