The speaker looks back on a woman named Helen and keeps asking the same question: what exactly was she to me? Every answer pulls two ways. She is a sea of thoughts and a rebellion, peace and revolution, pretty like the devil yet worse than God. Her words are bullets, her silence a huge war gun, her breath a religion. The speaker can't settle on whether she soothed them or tore them apart.
The one clear feeling was Fernweh, a German word for longing to be somewhere far away. Near her, the speaker wanted to run and be born again. The ending is sadder than the opening. She is now a distant memory, and the speaker admits they can't recall her face, her voice, or the warmth of her touch. Only her words, feelings, and "ache for war" remain.
The mood is restless and feverish, full of obsession and regret. The repeated "Wasn't she…?" makes it feel like the speaker is still arguing with the past, and the final line suggests she may have mirrored their own identity.