This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
All of seventeen
Eyes a purple green
Treated like a Queen, she was
On borrowed self esteem
She would do a dance
A painful masquerade
Spinning you into her web
Along her vain parade
In her uniform
Studded brass and steel
Kissing napkin, lipstick stains
And smearing sincerity
Along her vain parade
Along her veins
Time crept up on her
She's early gray
Her reflection looks concerned
As flowers hit her grave
Eyes a purple green
Treated like a Queen, she was
On borrowed self esteem
She would do a dance
A painful masquerade
Spinning you into her web
Along her vain parade
In her uniform
Studded brass and steel
Kissing napkin, lipstick stains
And smearing sincerity
Along her vain parade
Along her veins
Time crept up on her
She's early gray
Her reflection looks concerned
As flowers hit her grave
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its about a beautiful but shallow girl who needs to be a slut to validate her existence.
"treated like a queen she was on borrowed self-esteem": everybodys spoiled her all her life because shes beautiful, she gets all her confidence and self-esteem from too many people drooling over her
"she would do her dance a painful masquerade, spin you into her web along her vain parade" she flirts with guys and spins them into her web to fuck them. its a painful masquerade because shes going through all the motions for the sake of it, and all she wants is sex. her vain parade is just the line of guys she goes through to make herself feel beautiful and special.
"time crept up on her shes early gray" shes now past her prime, aging and deteriorating possibly due to an std or drug abuse from a partying lifestyle. the lyrics are almost mocking her, since she took it for granted that she was hot and would always have men obsessing over her.
"her reflection looks concerned and flowers hit her grave" it jumps forward, first to her looking in the mirror and realizing how fucked up she is now, and then to when shes dead. rather than flowers being placed on her grave, theyre hitting it, as if someones throwing them down angrily. nobody ever really loved her because all she had was physical attractiveness, and now that thats gone nobody cares anymore. this also ties up the flower theme of the song. the "flower" is also a metaphor for the girl herself for being beautiful but fragile and short-lived. as a side note flowers look like vaginas, so maybe thats where the title came from