I'm gonna pull a little @
Sesquipedalism here and share with you a depressing mental image I constructed while listening to She's Gone Away". The clue I'm going to work with is, of course, the extra Apple Music references to Reptile. Yes, I'm going to go autobiographical, because, while TDS seems to be largely fictional, I doubt Reptile isn't at all inspired by, ahem, actual events. The image featured Trent and Mariqueen, but, of course, they could be portraying "characters" in the lyrics, so they could have any given name, really.
Anyway... I imagined She's Gone Away being a sequel to Reptile, this time in present day. Our protagonist, Trent, Not the Actual Trent, Fake Trent, whatever, dug into his past "until his fingers bled", but he wasn't sure why, until he remembered her again. Her. The reptile. He can't place why he scratched that old wound.
I can't remember what she came here for, I can't remember much of anything anymore. The infection, the anger, the heartbreak, the blood from an old wound, is spreading inside him.
He is becoming paranoid, a little mouth inside his head talks to him and is driving him nuts. He keeps messing with those old, dark memories, until his skin turns black. He will always have only the memories; he will never get the feeling of being with her (or in love with her) back. He breaks down, cries. He still suffers from depression and breakdowns, even though he's got a great life with a wife and kids. So, the chorus is the logical, happier side of Trent and, at the same time, Mariqueen by his side, reassuringly telling the broken, deranged Trent to stop. She's gone away. There's nothing you can do about it. It's time to stop digging into the past, come back to reality, the present. He needs to take care of his kids, who are crying. Maybe he woke them up when he was having a breakdown in the middle of the night.
I guess I was tired of hearing the song as being creepy or disturbing, and instead conjured up a depressing and moving image.
Wow, this is fun, actually. Digging into the deeper meaning of the lyrics, I mean. I'm thinking of pulling another Sesqui and doing this for the entire EP.