Three short lines carry a surprising amount of pain. The speaker starts by admitting failure: "these words aren't enough." Whatever they want to say, whether it's an apology, a goodbye, or a confession, language can't hold all of it. Yet they write anyway.
The second line is the sharpest. "I hope it hurts to read them" is a startling thing to wish on someone, and it sounds almost cruel. But the last line complicates it: "they hurt me to write." The speaker isn't trying to wound from a safe distance. They're sharing the pain, hoping the reader will feel at least some of what they felt.
The mood is raw, tense, and quietly desperate. The lowercase letters and bare, plain wording make it feel unpolished, like something written in one go. Judging by the title, "the rule," there may be a sense of something fixed or unavoidable about this hurt, though the poem doesn't say what the rule is. That mystery adds to the ache.