Love, Mrs. Perfect
"Of course, you'll never make a mistake. You're perfect. You're too good for me."
This was the shining line in a slight argument with an ex. He was a bad boy who wore his bad boy flag just bravely enough for good girls like me to believe that he'd tire of the charades. There's no way to be that bad that openly and never want to change, right? Wrong.
That's how I became the "perfect" girl in an "imperfect" (nearly nonexistent) relationship with an "imperfect" man. That's how I learned that leading with your imperfections doesn't mean that you're ready to own them.
I have this hope that at some point in the generously near future, I'll learn how to stop replaying resounding one-liners from my exes. Just as I stripped their phone numbers and favorite meals from my memory, I can learn to unlearn the crazy shit they said. I can remember to forget every memory we ever made. I can pretend that I've washed myself anew and that if we met again, in this very moment, we wouldn't even get as far as "hello." I've come a long way because that was so long ago. There's a new special someone in the picture and I've been working on becoming a special person on my own. That's what I tell myself.
When I heard Bibi Bourelly and Earl St. Clair toss "you're a little too perfect for me" over a set of insistent drums and an evangelical organ, it struck a nerve.
At first sight of the video, I was drawn in by the stark white clothes, sugar cubes, flowers and sneakers that catered to the blindingly bland palette that Instagram has made us all accustomed to. (Not gonna lie, I was looking for some interior inspiration for my new bedroom.) Then I remembered what happens when I collide with white. Wine stains, crisp sneakers that track in new dirt, hair products that seep into shirts, and lipsticks that kiss powdery pillows in my sleep.
Many of the personalities that we look up to have conveniently wrapped themselves in an unchangeable and tauntingly permanent space that would be hard to recreate in real life. I thought this video would be more of that. A nice, neutral, painstakingly curated introduction into the mainstream music world. A video that's cute for right now, but not memorable the next time the homie asks if you've been listening to anything new lately.
The "Perfect" video slowly dissolves into a more realistic space. Like lipstick on teeth, nails chipping, bugs crawling real. Within 3 minutes, the world that we've been programmed to yearn and recreate begins to deteriorate right before our eyes. Skin is shed, breath is lost, but the drums beat on and the organ rises between the valleys that the singers have carved using interchangeable moans.
I find myself rocking from side to side through it all. I find myself reaching for the crisp and clean hue that I yearn to dip everything in. I want it all to be even, to make sense, and to look good on screen. Finally, i rejoice in the way that Bibi Bourelly and Earl St. Clair have chosen to highlight and deconstruct just how far-fetched our ideals have become.
I find myself resigning to what realness really looks like. For some, perfect means being able to keep someone close. For others, perfect means creating an untainted space of your own. "Perfect" is for the rest of us who have come to terms with the fact that sometimes the two are mutually exclusive.
That would be a little too easy.
-Brought to you by CoCo Curious











