No Good Deed

The night had waned with muted light,
a guttered hush along the street,
where something small, a human sound,
fell soft and broken at my feet.

A hand, half raised, not quite a plea,
a voice that trembled out a name,
any call, it scarcely mattered,
for all such cries are much the same.

I paused. I felt the pull begin,
that ancient tug toward the fall,
the quiet urge to intervene,
to be, for once, of use at all.

But thought came creeping, slow and sure,
a scholar dressed in shadowed grace,
and set its lantern to the dark
that flickered just behind that face.

You help, it said, and what then comes?
Not thanks, but questions, sharp and sly,
What did you want, what did you mean,
what hidden bargain lurks, and why?

For kindness bends the spine of pride,
and pride, once bent, will strike you twice,
the gift you give becomes a chain,
the chain recast as sacrifice.

I saw it then, the subtle shift,
their eyes would narrow, weigh the toll,
for aid received can sting and bruise,
and shame makes cruel what once was whole.

They’d think me lord of what I gave,
intruder in their fragile sphere,
a hand extended turns to threat,
when losing freedom’s what they fear.

And what of whispers? murmured thought,
the crowd unseen, yet always there,
They’ll mark your name with sharpened ink,
and weigh your motives in the air.

Too kind, you’re bold, so quick to rise,
too eager for another’s plight,
the tallest bloom invites the blade,
that cuts it down to equal height.

A helper soon becomes a tale,
retold with edges honed to sting,
She helps too much, she wants control,
there must be motive in the thing.

And then the ledger, tallied, kept,
a counting scratched in silent mind,
I owe, I owe, I never asked,
and debt breeds anger of a kind.

Or worse, a stillness learned too well,
a waiting for another’s hand,
until the will to rise alone
is buried deep in yielding sand.

And I, I saw myself as well,
reflected in that fractured glass,
the giver split by what returns,
by every kindness turned to mass.

Confusion coiled around the act,
and disillusion settled in,
for good once done, yet ill received,
will sour slow beneath the skin.

I felt the closing of a door,
not slammed but eased with careful art,
a boundary drawn in quiet ink
across the chambers of the heart.

The voice still lingered at my feet,
the need, a pulse I could not still,
but thought had built its careful case,
and bent compassion to its will.

So step by step, I moved away,
each footfall lighter than the last,
as if relief and guilt had joined
to make a shadow I could cast.

Behind me, soft, the smallest plea,
unclaimed, unanswered, left to be,

“Will nobody help me?”

By Heather Patton / Verdant Butterfly

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