[Breathing into a paper bag] I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm so normal and sane about these lyrics in a Kenzie context. I'm so-
So if you wash your hands of where you've been until you flood the second floor
firstly MAN this is a good lyric. this whole bridge slaps. secondly it is very apt for how Kenzie's attempts to make things better always spiral out of control into more collateral damage. thinking especially of how she tried to say everything right after the Incident and ppl thought she'd been coached, ultimately leading to her removal (and trigger event). I'm very sane and normal about the domestic metaphors here but we'll get into that later. This is also fitting for her parental situation; Kenzie tries desperately to control things, wash away the bad, but the tension and danger just keeps building - "flooding" and threatening to explode out from both her literal house and her mind.
Neatly fold your skeletons, but still can't shut the closet door
EVEN MORE A KENZIE LYRIC. As I mentioned, the metaphors around domestic etiquette (washing hands, folding) make me go feral because Kenzie's abuse was inextricably bound up in just this sort of etiquette, and it's permanently affected how she deals with difficult situations, her sense of identity, etc.. She tries to package up all of her trauma and negative emotions in the most polite, palatable ways (Stepford smiling, brushing off negative experiences as "embarrassment"), with the domestic etiquette that was hammered into her as a guideline - and "neatly fold your skeletons" is the PERFECT goddamn metaphor for that. But it's never enough, is it? No matter how perfectly she presents herself as the Good Daughter, immaculate hair, no scars, smiling and grateful - no matter how palatable she makes her past, how much she downplays her feelings - the pain doesn't go away. She can't move past it, she can't even repress it effectively; it leaks into (floods 👀) every facet of her life, causing the emotional volatility that ruins every relationship she tries to build.
The only ones in need of love are those who don't receive enough
So evil ones should get a little more
This lyric really got me thinking. Is Kenzie so staunchly set on redemption, rehabilitation, and second chances for those who have wronged her, because she wishes those she has wronged would offer the same to her? She befriends Ashley, an ex-S9 recruit; she befriends the Heartbroken; she befriends Chris, whose middle-school-typical assholery drives away the rest of the group, and she keeps extending that friendship even after his betrayal, however far he sinks; she obviously tries to rehabilitate her parents, to give them a second chance (that they don't deserve, certainly not at the cost to herself). Kenzie is all about giving "evil ones" love. And Kenzie is a girl who is constantly rejected and maligned in-universe, and who carries around immense guilt. Kenzie herself does not believe that Kenzie Did Nothing Wrong. Perhaps, she subconsciously counts herself among the evil ones - and perhaps she cannot even conceptualise herself as deserving of more love, except in this oblique, generalised, roundabout manner.
