From the album WIRED
This is about someone who finally demands honesty but immediately undermines their own request by insisting the other person feel exactly what they feel. The song poses as a confrontation but reveals itself as a plea for validation. The speaker wants truth on their own terms, which isn't truth at all.
Living in the shade of mystery / Waiting to find the time to breathe
The speaker has been holding their breath in someone else's uncertainty. 'Shade of mystery' makes ambiguity a physical place they've been stuck in, unable to escape until the other person decides to be clear.
I want you to notice / I want it to mean something / I want you to feel the way I feel
Three escalating demands that collapse into each other. Notice becomes mean something becomes feel what I feel. The speaker thinks they're asking for honesty but they're actually demanding emotional conformity.
Did you mean it too / When you wanted to? / Did you feel it too / When it suited you?
The speaker finally names what's been wrong the whole time. The other person's feelings were conditional, strategic, turned on and off like a light switch. But the irony is the speaker's own demands in the chorus are just as transactional.
(Take it all away) / (To a better place) / (Throw it all away)
These are physical gestures of removal happening underneath the spoken words. The speaker wants to discard the whole situation while simultaneously begging for it to matter. They're already leaving while they're still asking for confirmation.
The song ends stuck in the same loop it started in, asking questions it already knows the answers to. The speaker wanted confirmation that this meant something, but demanding someone feel what you feel is just another way of avoiding honesty. They're surprised to realize they've been just as conditional.