Roof / Ceiling
The roof or ceiling as the thing directly overhead that limits where the speaker can breathe, what she can see, and what she has to break through to get out. It is different from walls, which give the partner's barriers a sideways shape, and from the cage of industry or fame: the roof or ceiling is the speaker's own enclosure, the one she has to force her way out of to reach the world outside. (Distinct from being up on the roof as an open-air perch, which sits with Terrace / Balcony / Rooftop.)
The roof is a confinement the speaker knows is partly her own making, the relationship, habit or self-protection that has become a lid rather than a shelter. The force of the image is usually in the verb attached to it, the roof punched through or torn off, the ceiling broken, each one an act of freeing herself that takes more force than she had claimed before.
Appears in 1 song
“So I punched a hole in the roof Let the flood carry away all my pictures of you”
The roof represents the confinement of the relationship or the addictive cycle, something that keeps the speaker enclosed and prevents her from accessing fresh air and the cleansing rain. Punching through it is an act of violent self-liberation.