Emilia Pettersson's poem puts us inside a blurred, overwhelming moment, most likely a night of drinking and smoking, though the text only hints at it. The speaker feels hollow and fragile, "more void than human," and the details that fill the space (liquid in the cracks, smoke over the lines, music shaking the pieces) make her seem held together by whatever is around her.
In the bathroom, with flickering light matching her pulse, she sees a figure behind her. He has red eyes, a "killing pin" between his lips, and cracked hands, and he looks at her as though his whole shattered self were in her care. Whether he is really there or imagined is left unclear. The repeated "still hazy, still flickering, still beating" shows time stuck in place. The last line, "he has my soul, too," turns the poem: the two of them are both broken, and each holds a piece of the other. The mood is dizzy, intimate, and quietly desperate.