وای بر من

Persian builds an entire vocabulary of self-directed lament: وای بر من, خاک به سرم, خدا مرگم بده, بدبخت شدم, بیچاره شدم. None of these are real prayers for misfortune, despite the literal translations. They are emotional spice, a way of turning a stubbed toe into a small theatrical scene. وای بر من has the additional flavor of feeling quoted, as if the speaker is borrowing a line from a poem to describe their own minor crisis. That self-aware literary frame is part of why Iranian speech can leap so easily between high-poetic and low-everyday registers within a single sentence. If you are learning Persian, grow comfortable with this register early; without it, your speech sounds flat and unconvincingly Iranian, no matter how clean your grammar gets.