One of the many brief extrageneric texts found among her late papers after her death, Dickinson's final intentions toward this fragment remain unknown. It may have been destined for incorporation into a poem, a letter, or another composition; alternatively, it may be an experiment in aphoristic form; or, possibly, a compressed lyric poem unrecognized as such because of the crudeness of its material container. Dickinson appears to have canceled the phrase "sickens | and stings" and composed the variant "and sears" when reading through the draft a second time; the variant appears above the canceled phrase and in a smaller hand.