Comeuppance doesn’t always happen when it should. It doesn’t always arrive just at the moment the person who needs the lesson most should by right and justice and karma get their just desserts. Sometimes it comes years later, and over all that time in slow deterioration and gradual degradation. It eats away gently, insidiously, and so perfectly you don’t even realize it. And it’s usually the ones who inflict the hurt who aren’t the ones left unscathed in the end.
Mr. Perfect face
Mr. Here to stay
Mr. Looked me in the eye and told me you would never go away
Everything was right
Mr. I’ve been waiting for you all my life
Mr. Every single day until the end, I will be by your side
But that was when I got to know Mr. Change of heart
Mr. Leaves me all alone ~ I fall apart
It takes everything in me just to get up each day
But it’s wonderful to see that you’re okay
Sometimes, the intended recipient of the lesson doesn’t even know the song was written about them. Sometimes we don’t think we were even worthy of something like a song. Or a letter. Or a regret. And the hurt that we never meant to hurt so much rebounds in the most brilliantly hurtful way, taking its toll the long way – the lifelong limp to some sort of damage, some irrevocable damage. There are some things you cannot take back. There are some breaks that can never be mended. There are some hurts that simply won’t heal.
Hello Mr. Perfectly fine
How’s your heart after breaking mine?
Mr. Always at the right place at the right time, baby
Hello Mr. Casually cruel
Mr. Everything revolves around you
I’ve been Miss Misery since your goodbye
And you’re Mr. Perfectly fine
Mr. Never told me why
Mr. Never had to see me cry
Mr. Insincere apology so he doesn’t look like the bad guy
He goes about his day
Forgets he ever even heard my name
Well, I thought you might be different than the rest
I guess you’re all the same
Most people don’t think of themselves as the villain in any story. It’s very hard to admit when that’s the case, and even when we realize it might be so, we can still justify and explain our actions so as to be seen as complex instead of cruel, honest instead of hurtful. The mangled contortions involved in so masterfully switching the narrative, tweaking it just so, hanging innocence on singularly exact words and creating a maze of semantics, too often result in a shroud filled with holes – a net not capable of capturing the smoke of what only ever amounts to a lie.
‘Cause I hear he’s got his arm ’round a brand-new girl
I’ve been pickin’ up my heart, he’s been pickin’ up her
And I never got past what you put me through
But it’s wonderful to see that it never phased you
Hello Mr. Perfectly fine
How’s your heart after breakin’ mine?
Mr. Always at the right place at the right time, baby
Hello Mr. Casually cruel
Mr. Everything revolves around you
I’ve been Miss Misery since your goodbye
And you’re Mr. Perfectly fine
While we toil at seeing ourselves as the villain, we have no problem seeing ourselves as the central character of every story we think we’re living. We aren’t alone. A geocentric view of the universe is the original mistake we as humans made. We’re still making that same mistake, still thinking the world revolves around us. It doesn’t make us bad. It just means we’re human, and humans were designed to fail first and fix later.
So dignified in your well-pressed suit
So strategized, all the eyes on you
Sashay away to your seat
It’s the best seat, in the best room
Oh, he’s so smug, Mr. Always wins
So far above me in every sense
So far above feeling anything
And it’s really such a shame
It’s such a shame
‘Cause I was Miss Here to stay
Now I’m Miss Gonna be alright someday
And someday maybe you’ll miss me
But by then, you’ll be Mr. Too late
When I used to drink too much, I’d get to a point where friends would ask if I was okay, and I’d always snarl, “I’m fine” with a laugh and half a scream. When I was sober and someone hurt me, friends would also ask if I was okay, and I’d say the same thing – “I’m fine” – with a dismissive shake of the head. These both occurred with some regularity over the years. It turned out I was never fine. Not perfectly fine, not imperfectly fine, not fine at all.
Goodbye Mr. Perfectly fine
How’s your heart after breakin’ mine?
Mr. Always at the right place at the right time, baby
Goodbye Mr. Casually cruel
Mr. Everything revolves around you
I’ve been Miss Misery for the last time
And you’re Mr. Perfectly fine
You’re perfectly fine
Mr. Look me in the eye and told me you would never go away
You said you’d never go away
And then one day, maybe near the end of our lives, we forgive, or we forget – there’s eventually no big distinction between the two. It then becomes… nothing. Like we never met. Like it never happened. None of the hurt, and none of the happiness. We work so hard toward erasing the bad bits, to overcoming the sad parts, to picking up all the pieces – and we forget the music and we lose the song. If we’re lucky, we hear it again, and it strikes in a different way. We allow ourselves to see our part in the pain. We acknowledge it. We own up to it. We apologize in our heart – as sorry for someone else’s damage as for our own – because it’s always the same, always from the same place. A tear is a tear, no matter what pushes it down the cheek.
