I love you the way a drowning man loves air. And it would destroy me to have you just a little.

The speaker frames love as a life-or-death necessity rather than a pleasant addition: like air to a drowning person, the beloved is imagined as the condition for survival. The second sentence sharpens this into an all-or-nothing demand—partial access (“just a little”) is not a compromise but a torment, because it intensifies craving without relieving it. The imagery suggests obsessive, consuming attachment and the pain of proximity without fulfillment. It can be read both as romantic extremity (a declaration of total devotion) and as a warning about love that becomes dependency, where desire eclipses autonomy and moderation feels unbearable.