Porcelain

To me this song is about someone with borderline personality disorder who fell in love, and how they experience romantic love through their disordered mind.

I find it beautiful because it's a very gentle and sensitive look inside the mind of a disorder that is usually given no empathy and usually just considered the 'crazy asshole' disorder.

Primary symptoms of the disorder include (person must have 5+ to be diagnosed) :

1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. (Very insecure but will never admit it, extreme fear of abandonment, often leads to intense jealousy even when with very loyal partners)
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships (Often due to the disorder itself. Paranoia, insecurity, jealousy and bouts of rage over from the ceaseless emotional turmoil)
3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self (And thus they often project onto and obsess over other people, as self-analysis is very difficult and frustrating. In love this winds up adding fuel to the fire in their efforts in #1)
4. Impulsiveness in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging
5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats or self-injuring behavior such as cutting, interfering with the healing of scars (excoriation) or picking at oneself
6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness
8. Inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation, delusions or severe dissociative symptoms

Okay, so the lyrics :

"In my dreams, I'm dying all the time." (Dreams are often the chaotic playground of the subconscious mind, and our 'shameful' feeling dreams are also out secrets. This line expresses the anguish, turmoil and insanity they experience due to their disorder, specifically in relevance to the relationship. He may seem just crazy and like a douchebag, but what doesn't show is how much pain he is always in.)

"As I wake its kaleidoscopic mind." (Borderliners become more paranoid and tangled up as they attempt to work through things in their mind. The insecurity and paranoia breeds and spirals endlessly. Yesterday he freaked out because she talked with a male friend. Today he freaked out because she went to the mall by herself, where she could have met another guy. Tomorrow she'll be tired and want to stay home, and he'll be sure it's because she's seeing someone else, maybe the guy from yesterday. The more he thinks about it, the worse it gets, so he can't just 'work through it.')

"I ever meant to hurt you. I never meant to lie." (No, he probably never did mean to do it, but he sure did do it. In his mind he just loves her, but he's mentally and emotionally disordered and flies off the handle, saying very harsh or outright nasty things or getting physically out of control, because he can't take how jealous he feels all the time. Jealousy is a VERY PAINFUL emotion. Also, he is desperately trying to keep her and fears abandonment, so he has woven countless lies trying to do this. Ironically he has broken her trust because he was unable to trust her.)

"So this is goodbye. This is goodbye." (This should really be written 'So this is goodbye? This is goodbye...' It repeats because the reality is sinking in that they are breaking up. It is very unhealthy for a person to be in a relationship with a borderline, even if there is love there and they feel sorry for them. Eventually it simply has to give, or really bad things start to escalate. This relationship has ended, and he can hardly believe it, after he feels like he tried so hard. It is also a feeling of stumbling shock, revealed in the next line.)

"Tell the truth you never wanted me. Tell me." (Paranoid disorders are always sure that everyone is lying to them, using them, conspiring against them, etc. Thus the immense insecurity, and thus the immense jealousy when in a romantic relationship and they really do love the person. Borderlines CAN love, even if it is disordered. All the while he was trying to fight against his paranoia and jealousy, but now that she has ended the relationship, he feels like it validates all of his insecurities the whole time. Extremely sensitive and horrified of abandonment, he can't process it rationally. She is abandoning him and never loved him, he was right all along. The extra 'tell me' is a very sad, defeated 'tell me' because in the back of his mind he always did want to believe she loved him and would stay but never could.)

"As I wake I'm going out of my mind." (Eventually confronted somehow/by someone that the break up really is HIS fault, or more gently his disorder's fault, and being faced with the facts that she always was loyal and he screwed up a great thing, he 'wakes' in the moment from his disorder and sees the truth, which simply drives him outright insane as the pain comes full circle.)