Little Miss Topper — "Whatever You Got, I Got Worse"

Lyrics

The air was warm.
Someone, I think it was Karen,
started to tell a story.
And I saw your eyes change.
Just for a second.
The way a hunter's do.

She said she had a migraine all of Tuesday.
The kind that puts spots in your vision.
And you nodded, performatively.
Your spoon tapping your teeth.
I could almost see you scrolling through the files.
That mental trophy shelf of glorious suffering.
Looking for the right one.
The perfect, devastating winner.

Oh, Little Miss Topper.
You can't just let a story be.
It's not a conversation, it's a competition.
Whatever we've got, you've got worse.
Whatever we've felt, you felt it first.
And the sympathy in the room, it's a small, finite thing.
And you have to have all of it.

Then Mark, bless him, told us about his wrist.
The slip on the ice back in January.
The cast, the six weeks of typing with one hand.
And you leaned forward, your fork held in the air.
"Oh, you broke your wrist?" you said.
"I broke BOTH of mine. In 2007."
"Fell off a unicycle. For charity."
The table went quiet.
Just the sound of Mark's wine glass touching the linen.

Oh, Little Miss Topper.
You can't just let a story be.
It's not a conversation, it's a competition.
Whatever we've got, you've got worse.
Whatever we've felt, you felt it first.
And the sympathy in the room, it's a small, finite thing.
And you have to have all of it.

Do you practice in the mirror?
Refining the exact tone of remembered pain?
Is it so lonely in your story
that you have to live in everyone else's,
but make it bigger?
Make it yours?
We just wanted to share a small hurt.
We didn't know it was a contest.
We didn't know you were the only judge.

The conversation picked up again.
But Karen was quiet.
And Mark just stared at his plate.
And you... you looked satisfied.
You'd won.
You always win.