If wild my breast and sore my pride, I bask in dreams of suicide, If cool my heart and high my head I think 'How lucky are the dead.

In these lines Parker compresses her trademark blend of wit and despair into a neat couplet of emotional logic: whether she feels hot with wounded pride or cold with detached self-possession, the thought of death presents itself as a perverse consolation. The speaker’s mood swings (“wild…sore” versus “cool…high”) suggest that suicidal ideation is not tied to a single crisis but can become a habitual mental refrain, triggered by both humiliation and emptiness. The rhyme and jaunty meter sharpen the irony—light verse carrying a dark admission—highlighting Parker’s larger theme that cleverness can coexist with, and even mask, profound suffering.