Good Guys Need The Bad Guy

— body language by Weddie Thiên  —

 

A TV show, way back in time,
From fifty-six to seventy-nine,
Where three stood up and each said,
"I am the one! The rest have led
You so astray!" Two came with the lies.
One had plain facts, there was no disguise.

​

Now shrink that show from three to two,
My mother and my father, that's who,
And change the question, sharp and sly,
From "Who is real?" to "Who's the bad guy?"
Each one the judge. Each one the accused.
Each one so confident, they'd been abused.
 

Will the real bad guy please stand up?
The lights are hot, the votes are up!
But neither stood, and here is why,
Their chairs were props, their scripts were lies.

​

For here's the stage they were standing on,
A world where goodness must always be won
By proving that they're not the one who is bad,
Inside a game where both were already had!
We've all played it, and yes, that's you too,
It's running now, right straight through and through.

 

So let us not mock them, let us not sneer,
Let us not blame them and think it's all clear.
For if we blame those others who are the blamers,
We've joined with them too, we're also the gamers!
They both did the best that they could have done,
Inside a world where "shoulds" are the sun.

 

She stayed with him for forty-one full years,
Through all the silence, fake smiles, all the tears,
No, not out of love and not out of trust,
But for being the "good one," she felt that she must.
So she could wear the crown of a wife who is "true,"
To be another "GOOD ONE," who gets themself screwed.

 

And he? He knocked himself out, and out loud,
Guilting himself before himself and the crowd,
For this bought him some "goodness," at least in his view,
For this he could claim the right to what's due.
For that's the stage from which our world's been made,
Where the giver is praised, and the taker must be flayed.

 

But ask a question, it's sharp and it's fine,
If you hold to those hard and unyielding lines,
Then who is the badder, when all's said and done,
The giver who trains, or the trained-up one?
And when she walked out after forty-one years,
He married the next one to dry up his tears,
Then another to hold those old roles in their place.
There was no lack of givers to run in that race!

 

Will the real bad guy please stand up?
The lights are hot, the votes are up!
But neither stood, and here is why,
Their chairs were props, their scripts were lies.

 

Now flip the board and ask anew,
Our job number one, for me and you,
Is taking care of ourselves, it's true!
My father took and took and got his feed,
Short-range indeed, but he met some needs.
My mother gave away those many years
To buy applause from watching peers.

 

And here's the trick, the hidden clause,
The good must have the bad, because
Without a bad there is no good,
No halo hanging where it should!
If some stopped taking, oh, what a loss,
The good ones are out of work, and cross!

Two weeks from the day that Mom got away,
She told me how she'd been betrayed every day.
For five long minutes, she saw nothing but red.
Then gently as could be, I said what I said,
“But Mom, you let him do all of that.”
She flared! She fumed! Then she quietly sat,
Stopping herself right there in mid-flight,
She said, "Yes, son, yes, I did. You're right."

 

And a few years on, she came to me and said,
"Even at the end, holding on by a thread,
The only way to set myself free
Was to blame him, to blame him, can't you see?
For if I hadn't blamed him, I'd have had to stay,
For I'd pity him so, my whole life would go gray."
So blame became her one and only exit door,
And she kept right on blaming him forever and more.

 

And here's the horror, so plain and true,
Of any "goodness" sold falsely to you,
To praise putting others as those who come first.
And blaming you when you tend to your thirst,
It makes thriving and joy such a punishable thing,
So blame's the only door with a key on the ring.

 

Will the real bad guy please stand up?
The lights are hot, the votes are up!
But neither stood, and here is why,
Their chairs were props, their scripts were lies.

 

So step into freedom, one step at a time,
Undo those old scripts, they'll no longer chime.
No praise, no blame, no crown, no cane,
Just what things cost and what you can gain,
Both giving and taking, both fed and both free,
Just you, and all others, a true jubilee.