The Desire and the Satisfaction - Jan Toorop / WikiArt

my choice in lovers failed me.
I wished to be scorched, fêted,
beaten. Yes, beaten, while held
in place by the upper arm.
I could prove my devotion.
But the men I loved were exquisite
in their refusal to say,
I feel, I love, I want you
bent like this. They were floes
of cyan ice, full of secret life
and devastation. Why did I believe.
What was there to learn.
Love without suffering—
this wasted my talents. 

Esther Lin
Brazilian born Esther Lin is an undocumented poet and the author of Cold Thief Place (Alice James Books, 2025) and The Ghost Wife (Poetry Society of America, 2018), and co-editor of Here to Stay: Poetry and Prose from the Undocumented Diaspora (HarperCollins, 2024). Lin is a critic at large for Poetry Northwest, and co-organize the Undocupoets, which promotes the work of undocumented poets and raises consciousness about the structural barriers that they face in the literary community. She was a Writing Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and her work has been supported by Cité Internationale,, the Poetry Society of America, and Poets House, among other organizations. She won a Pushcart Prize in 2024, and was featured in Best New Poets 2022.