The speaker describes being locked in a prison they built themselves, with bars "forged within my mind." The central irony is that they hold the key to their own release, yet still can't use it, so they kick and scream while the way out stays in their hands. The suffering feels both self-made and impossible to escape.
The jailor is a "demon of my creation," a woman who keeps stirring up desperation by dredging up old quarrels. The speaker hoped she had forgotten, but her memory persists, and the comparison to being tortured like "the Begotten" adds a note of religious suffering. The last line, "To think this started with a kiss," suggests the pain began in a relationship, though the poem doesn't say more. The mood is weary, trapped, and bitterly regretful, with a small, sad shock at how something tender turned into this.