i've always pictured this song as a hauntingly beautiful, poetic expression of why he loves her. he describes what he was like before he met her ("i hid myself from failure and fear") and how he was almost touching his potential but wasn't quite getting there ("floating and fighting like a kite on a string"). falling in love with her changed everything, and set him free to be what he was meant to be.
this may be reading too much into it, but i get the sense that "when they say that i'm just a terrible kite" means that he's challenging the status quo, unafraid to fly free like a bird when most of the people in this world are kites, tethered down by strings. of course he's a terrible kite, because he isn't a kite at all---anymore. falling for this girl has completely transformed him into something wonderful and revolutionary. "you cut through my tether and changed everything"
i've always pictured this song as a hauntingly beautiful, poetic expression of why he loves her. he describes what he was like before he met her ("i hid myself from failure and fear") and how he was almost touching his potential but wasn't quite getting there ("floating and fighting like a kite on a string"). falling in love with her changed everything, and set him free to be what he was meant to be.
this may be reading too much into it, but i get the sense that "when they say that i'm just a terrible kite" means that he's challenging the status quo, unafraid to fly free like a bird when most of the people in this world are kites, tethered down by strings. of course he's a terrible kite, because he isn't a kite at all---anymore. falling for this girl has completely transformed him into something wonderful and revolutionary. "you cut through my tether and changed everything"
it's incredibly poetic, it really is.