Nikycookie

Now your mouth is foaming like a rabid dog And where the river flowed is now a clouded fog Your teeth are gnashing louder than your monologue And I just stood there, bathed in the quiet

the problem with people analyzing this is they’re always taking it the wrong way, only focusing on “i don’t feel like safe” or the guns part, and they ignore the entirety of it—tommy saying wilbur makes him feel safe in that way, that he sees wilbur as on his side. it’s not him and wilbur as the ones with the guns, fighting each other; it’s him and wilbur against the other person. it’s him and wilbur facing down the danger that maybe wilbur put him in, maybe wilbur knowingly led him into, but it’s still him and wilbur and that’s reassuring and safe to tommy, to an extent. it’s not the most conventional kind of safe, maybe not other people’s idea of safe, but it is to tommy.

wilbur protects tommy, but wilbur is still self-destructive, maybe putting himself in those situations to try to hurt himself or because he just doesn’t care or put enough thought into why or how it could be dangerous, but tommy is still potentially going to end up as collateral because he chose to follow wilbur. and tommy’s not choosing to follow wilbur because he wants to be in those situations; he’s doing it because he trusts wilbur, he feels safe around wilbur, and he hopes he can stop the gunfight from happening because he doesn’t want wilbur to get hurt. tommy will throw himself into dangerous situations to pull wilbur out of it, but wilbur will still stand in front of tommy to take the gunfire. it’s about codependency and the illusion of safety and sticking by each other even when it’s not the best idea because “it’s about making sure you don’t give up on the people you care about.”