Introduction
Fine, but not really
There's something almost funny about trying to get over someone in a plaza. Not a meaningful place, not somewhere with history. Just a generic outdoor space with umbrella stands and storefronts. Joji plants the narrator right there, in the most ordinary setting possible, and lets the mundanity do the emotional damage.
"Kill The Geese" is a song about the gap between what you tell yourself and what's actually happening. The narrator keeps insisting they're good, they're present, they're moving on. The song keeps proving otherwise.
Chorus
Detachment worn like armor
The chorus lands first, before any setup, which is a bold move. We open mid-mood, already checked out.
"Fuck em' all, smoking gas, in the mall, in the plaza / In the fall, like a ghost, I been harboring the months"
The "fuck em' all" is loud and dismissive, but the rest of the line drains the bravado out fast. Haunting a mall. Moving through fall like a ghost. These aren't images of someone thriving. They're images of someone drifting, filling time, not actually present anywhere they go. "Harboring the months" is the most telling phrase here. You harbor something you can't let go of. The narrator is carrying time itself like dead weight.
Verse 1
The long way through pain
Verse 1 pulls back to give some context for how the narrator got here.
"On the road, through the growth, had to crawl, through the valley / In the forest, little frog, I'm sticking to the walls"
It's strange, almost fable-like imagery, but the emotional logic is clear. This was a hard journey. Crawling through valleys, clinging to surfaces like a frog on a wall. There's no triumphant arrival at the end of it. The narrator comes out the other side and ends up at a plaza, smoking, haunting months. The growth was real, but it didn't fix what needed fixing.
Verse 2
Repetition as self-persuasion
This is where the song's real emotional engine shows itself. Verse 2 is built almost entirely on repetition, the narrator saying the same thing over and over with small variations.
"I am in the plaza and I'm tryna get right / I said I am in the plaza and I'm tryna forget about you"
The word "tryna" does a lot here. Not "I forgot about you." Not even "I'm forgetting." Still trying. And the way the line shifts mid-verse from "get right" to "forget about you" is the slip. The narrator catches themselves. The whole point of being in the plaza, of being out, of being anywhere, is to not think about this person. And they can't stop.
"Umbrellas in the closet, it'll rain without you / Little holes in the pockets, I ain't holding onto"
These two lines are the most quietly devastating in the song. Umbrellas in the closet means they're unprepared for what's coming, or maybe just accepting they'll get wet. The holes in the pockets are even sharper. Nothing to hold. Nothing held. It's a physical image for an emotional state, and it lands because it doesn't oversell itself. Then the verse loops back, repeating the plaza lines again, the narrator still trying, still not quite getting there.
Conclusion
The song never gives the narrator a breakthrough. The chorus comes back, same words, same ghost in the mall. The "okay, okay, okay" that bookends sections isn't reassurance. It's the sound of someone talking themselves off a ledge repeatedly, which means they keep ending up back on it.
"Kill The Geese" is about the exhausting performance of being over something. Joji doesn't dramatize heartbreak. He shows what it looks like after the drama, when you're just a person in a plaza, pockets empty, months piling up, still trying to get right.
