This is about loving someone who hurt you before they knew how dangerous they were. The Old Yeller reference isn't metaphor, it's the whole thesis: when something you love becomes rabid, the violence isn't its fault, but that doesn't mean you survive it. She keeps saying home is close, but the pronouns split between 'you' and 'him' because she's talking to two different people at once, or maybe talking herself in circles about whether she stays or runs.
Grieving in a suitcase / She packs herself away
Packing becomes an act of self-erasure, not travel. The grief gets contained before the body does, which is backwards unless leaving feels like dying.
His gap tooth smile / Felt like a child's / But we were never equals
The childlike detail makes the power imbalance sharper. She saw the innocence but knew the relationship was tilted from the start, which means she walked in knowing it would hurt.
But now I would take him out / And shoot him like old yeller
This flips the logic of the whole song. In Old Yeller, you kill the dog to save it from rabies, but also to save yourself. She's saying love turned into something that had to be destroyed, and the mercy was for both of them.
But it wasn't his fault / When he sunk his teeth in
She absolves him four times in a row, which is either forgiveness or the lie you tell yourself when you can't admit someone chose to hurt you. The repetition makes it sound like a mantra she needs to keep saying to believe it.
I will never leave you / I could never reach him
The tense shift breaks the promise in real time. 'Will never leave' is future commitment, 'could never reach' is past failure. She's singing to someone she's already lost while pretending proximity still exists.
The song ends on 'I will, I will, I will,' which sounds like determination but lands like desperation. She's either convincing herself she'll stay or she'll leave, and the repetition means she doesn't believe either option. The last image you're left with is someone trying to get home while admitting they could never reach it in the first place.