Please do not be kind to me,
I think that’d be best;
I’m alone and unaccustomed
To any easiness.

I might cease to struggle forth;
I might just lose heart;
For I’m tense, and your tenderness
Might take me apart.

I’m inflated with long patience;
I fear your kind relief
Might strike the balloon
Of my striving grief.

I’ve been propelled, light and rigid,
And I’ve contended on,
As if from lived disaster,
I breathe in helium.

I’ve had to learn ambition
For want of place to rest,
So its softness will undo me:
My needle is your breast.

I’ll give up if your affection
Were given to me;
And with my hopes and my afflictions
I, too, will cease to be.