Kohloss's poem circles one puzzle: how can anyone say "I love you" and mean it as their own when the words have been said countless times before? The speaker keeps testing the line between self and other, inside and outside, thought and the person thought about. She admits that her thoughts of a loved one don't actually produce that person, though she half believes they do. Rooms, walls and shared air become images for how little we can know of anyone else's experience.
The tone is cool and analytical, almost like a philosophy lecture, yet longing keeps breaking through. "How much do I want to love you. How much do I" feels raw beneath the abstraction. Then the ending turns strange, with crocodiles, women carrying octopi and strangled syllables, as if logic gives way to dream. The last line, "I want to be very quiet and talk on and on," captures the poem's mood: a wish to speak honestly while knowing language is borrowed.