Narcissus

I felt bad for that girl

'Cause she loved him

All the girls loved my boy

It's a damn shame

One of them moved out of state
'Cause of it

She told him she loved him
And he told her she should die
Because then she'd ascend
To a higher plane of consciousness
Where love would only be a concept
And not something that could hurt her

She took a second
Then she burst into tears
And two weeks later
She was living in California
And probably much happier for it

When that boy was born
I knew we were in trouble

He was such a handsome baby
A man shouldn't say that about his boy
But it's true
He was handsome

And he had an exceptionally large head

Nearly killed his mother
When he came out

But then she saw that little face
And she just loved him
Like he was peanut butter ice cream

That was the first woman he ever charmed
And he hasn't stopped since

I took him to my old grandfather
Who could read people's futures
By looking at their toes

I never understood what he saw there
'Cause he was pretty much blind
But he was always right on the money
When he guessed what was gonna happen to them

Well, he took one look at my boy's toes
And he shook his head

'What is it, Gramps,' I asked

He looked at me and said--

'He'll be fine.'

And I let out a sigh of relief

But then Gramps held up one finger
And said--

'As long as he doesn't masturbate.'

. . . . .

By the time he was fifteen
All the girls just loved him

They used to follow him
When he'd go out hunting

Except he didn't really hunt
He just went out there to read poetry books
And contemplate nature

He thought I didn't know what he was doing out there
And he was right

I thought he was getting fresh
With some of the girls in town
But I was wrong

He never had any interest

He used to tell me he was going to go to save himself
Until somebody good enough for him came along

Couldn't really fault him for it

The Bible tells us to wait, doesn't it?

But I still had to make sure
He didn't try handing it to himself
Because I trusted my gramps

I told him it was a sin
Even though I didn't really believe that
And it did the trick
For awhile

When Echo first started coming around
I thought my prayers were answered

She was the prettiest thing you could imagine
And she had the sweetest voice

She used to go out into those woods with him
And he'd run from her

I thought maybe he was playing hard to get
But after the accident...

. . . . .

He said he had to shove her

Said it was the only way

She kept comin' at him
And comin' at him

So he pushed her

Told her that he didn't like her

She started to cry
And kept grabbing at him

They were near the the edge of the woods
Where it goes down and down
Into the parking lot
For the Walmart

Well I guess he pushed her
And she backwards
And went right down the hill

Tumbled a little bit
And then hit her head
On the rock
With the graffiti on it

Poor thing bled to death
While my boy ran home
To tell me he fucked up
And what should he do
If she tried to have him arrested for assault

He was always too smart
Always over-thinking things

I thought his smile would be what brought him down
But I never thought it would be his smarts

. . . . .

He brought me to where she was
And I helped him hide her

I knew some places
'Cause of how I really do go hunting
In those woods

Her parents were all kinds of torn up
But after a year they stopped looking
And nobody ever saw them much after that

When I'd go hunting
I'd hear her voice

Calling out

Not for me, but for Narcissus

For my boy

He wound up at a nice school
Ivy and everything

Spends all his days writing
Writing shit about life and love

Never wrote anything about Echo though

Not to my knowledge anyway

I don't like anything he writes

It all starts funny
Then gets real dark
And disturbed
And it unsettles me to read it

I don't like things that go from sweet to hard like that

Maybe that's why I shouldn't have been a dad
That's how children go

From kind to harsh
Like a dawn to a dusk

. . . . .

My boy's married now
Got kids

And so I don't know
If he ever did what gramps
Told me not to let him do

But the way I see it
Maybe I heard wrong

Gramps and his prophesies
Were always kinda tricky

Maybe it wasn't about sex
But about something deeper than that

Maybe I shouldn't have let him
Think so much
And hold all his love in like he did

Hard to say

Real hard to say

All I know is I still hear those voices in the woods

And I wonder sometimes
If he does too