I think it's about a girl who's coming of age and is overwhelmed by having to figure out what to do with her life. She always put off thinking about it, treating it as something in the future that she doesn't have to deal with yet. The ray gun symbolizes this because it's futuristic and unreachable, but now similar things are actually being developed. She can no longer leave things to the future, because the future is now.
She feels like everything keeps going around her and rushing her while she remains confused ("all the planets spinning fast around us") and like there are too many "angles" that her future could take and none seem more appealing than others ("all this beauty stretching out behind us"). Thinking about all this makes her feel trapped and weighed down, and she wants someone to come and figure it out for her or make her not have to figure it out at all, so that she can just have "a pretty little life" without having to do any work to create such a life. I think a lot of high school and college students have this sort of crisis and just want an easy way out.
I think it's about a girl who's coming of age and is overwhelmed by having to figure out what to do with her life. She always put off thinking about it, treating it as something in the future that she doesn't have to deal with yet. The ray gun symbolizes this because it's futuristic and unreachable, but now similar things are actually being developed. She can no longer leave things to the future, because the future is now. She feels like everything keeps going around her and rushing her while she remains confused ("all the planets spinning fast around us") and like there are too many "angles" that her future could take and none seem more appealing than others ("all this beauty stretching out behind us"). Thinking about all this makes her feel trapped and weighed down, and she wants someone to come and figure it out for her or make her not have to figure it out at all, so that she can just have "a pretty little life" without having to do any work to create such a life. I think a lot of high school and college students have this sort of crisis and just want an easy way out.