This song watches someone accept their own erasure in real time, changing 'You don't want to worry now' to 'I don't wanna worry now' between verses like they're learning the script. The word 'sacrifice' only shows up as a label in the refrain, never describing what's actually being lost, which means the sacrifice isn't a decision but the gradual disappearance of the person asking the question.
Well, I've been walkin' sideways / You know they tell me it's okay this way
Sideways movement means going nowhere while pretending to make progress. The 'they tell me' defense arrives before anyone accuses him of wasting time, like he's rehearsing reassurance he doesn't believe.
You don't want to worry now / I don't wanna worry now
The pronoun switch is the whole song. Someone else's dismissal becomes his own internal voice, which is how you lose yourself without noticing it happening.
Will I feel a loss beside me now?
This might be the most passive way possible to describe grief. Not 'will I lose something' but 'will I notice if something disappears while standing right next to me.' He's asking if he'll be allowed to register his own erasure.
It's a funny thing loving life / Sacrifice, sacrifice (For love)
The word 'funny' does all the work here. Not beautiful, not painful, just 'funny,' like the whole arrangement is absurd and he knows it. The parenthetical '(For love)' reads like a legal disclaimer nobody believes.
Lenderman is writing about the kind of slow erasure that happens when you accept someone else's version of your situation as your own. By the end, he's not even asking the question anymore, he's just repeating the word 'sacrifice' like he's trying to convince himself it was a choice. The song never resolves because there's nothing left to resolve once you've internalized your own disappearance.