Nothing in the four stanzas names the thing they describe. Only the title tells us what "It" stands for, and the poem trusts us to keep that word in mind while the speaker catalogues what betrayal does to the senses. We never learn who did the betraying or what was done. What remains is the aftermath, and the central idea is that betrayal leaves a person so unmoored that they start testing their own body for proof they are still there.
The construction is strict. Each stanza gives a sense (taste, sight, hearing, then all of them together as touch), a physical action, and a purpose introduced by "Just to." Then comes the flat refrain, "Of course." The images are chosen to hurt. Copper, a darkest cavern and chaos all begin with the same hard *c* sound, and the refrain "Of course" carries it on, so the harshness seems to follow the speaker from stanza to stanza. The first two stanzas also share a *b* thread in "bite," "blood" and "black," which makes the language feel clenched.
The most telling lines are the "Just to" ones, because each is oddly clinical. The speaker bites a lip "just to check for my blood type," as if pain were a lab procedure. A person cannot taste their blood type, so the line works as dark irony, a wish to confirm who they are. Closing the eyes "just to compare shades of black" turns the inner dark into something to be studied. The speaker suffers "in silence / Just to notice how quieter it would be," and here the grammar stumbles. "How quieter" is not standard English, and whether it is deliberate or a slip, it suits a mind that is not speaking smoothly. The pattern is a kind of numbness. Pain has become so large that the speaker holds it at arm's length and takes notes, as if experiencing it directly were too much.
The verbs in these purpose clauses shift in a quiet progression: *check*, *compare*, *notice*, and finally *hear*. They begin as detached observation and end in something more basic. By the last stanza the sensations have merged ("It feels like all three"), and the speaker's response is no longer a small, private experiment. The line stretches out, "I scream and I scream and I scream for help," and the repeated "I scream" with its chain of "and"s makes the line lurch forward without relief. It is the longest line in the poem, the first time the controlled, short-lined rhythm breaks. Yet the purpose clause deflates it: "Just to hear the sound of my own voice." The call for help gets no reply. The only proof of life the speaker can find is the one they make themselves.
That is where the refrain does its work. "Of course" can be read as a shrug, as bitter sarcasm, or as the speaker anticipating each result before it happens. Of course the blood is just blood, the dark just dark, the silence no relief. By the final stanza it carries the heaviest meaning: of course no one comes. The third refrain also appears without its full stop in the version we have. If that is intentional, it is the one moment the resignation seems to trail off instead of closing. If it is accidental, it is still a small reminder of how fragile the poem's control is.
The poem is free verse, with no rhyme and plain, spoken diction, which keeps it close to confession. The only pattern is the repetition, and that is enough. The reader feels the same loop the speaker is caught in, repeating the same steps and arriving at the same unsatisfying answer.
The poem is worth reading because it treats betrayal as something lived through the body instead of explained. It does not argue about trust or blame anyone. It shows a person alone in the aftermath, reaching for the senses one at a time and finding that each only confirms the hurt. The ending is especially stark. Crying for help and hearing only your own voice is a precise picture of isolation, and by withholding the story behind it, the poem lets readers fill in their own.