My Good Deed

I tried to save a girl I truly loved

And didn't quite know how to help her

So now she's sleeping as her parents up above

Cry over things that they can't tell her

And when I did my good deed

I thought I'd feel unbroken gladness

But standing in the street alone

I just felt sinking sadness

Girl, your dad will not us bless

So hang up your veil and dress

Look at me and take one guess

Where this best-intentioned love will lead us

I once felt a feeling fully through

Though I knew I shouldn't feel it

Because to act on it I'd be a person

Who should be slapped into a straitjacket

So every time it comes around

I just let it die inside me

You said, "I only come around

Because I just need you to hide me"

So we knelt in those dead weeds

Sticks and sharp rocks cutting into our knees

And I thought that we would freeze

But there was just too much warm blood in our bodies

I'm not going to make you take the pills

Though you should really think about it

The fire by which we both were almost killed

Glowed so beautiful, don't doubt it

But we have to make a choice now

Can we glow without it?

There's a space I tried to fill

But I'm seeing now I never will

You fly around while I stand still

Until I slowly just get smaller and smaller

I tried to save a girl I truly loved

And I never would desert her

But we both found out that I was dreaming

Of the day I thoroughly could hurt her

And I saw myself inside her eyes

This shrinking would-be savior

Resented her for never needing help

And couldn't wait just to betray her

So we drove back to her place

From the temporary home that we had made

And I stepped back into the street

Feeling the fullest moment of my life

Slowly shrink away from me

With my good deed