BOULEVARD


Written by

Ryan Adams – Drunk And Fucked Up (Like The Twilight)

“Fuck,” my stomach growled. I was hungry, the dime-store diners were shut – boarded windows and unkempt sidewalks, leaves crumpled along the cracks in the concrete – and the twilight’s thick, hot air in my collar. I fumbled around in my pockets for loose change, only bus tickets and a stray button.

“Fuck this,” kicking angrily against the curb, stubbing my toe through the worn leather of my shoes.

It should have changed. I was meant to be richer, cleaner, sophisticated. I’m poor, dirty, puerile. Sick to the knees with buttermilk curdling in my stomach. I can feel the mucus in my lungs, the clumps of nicotine blackening arteries, strangling my throat.

I keep reaching into my pockets, thinking there’ll be coins I missed, small coins quiet, stuck, in the stitched corners of the inside fabric. I keep doing this. I know there are no coins and no notes and no unclaimed cheques crumpled and useless, but I keep fumbling.

The last cheque came in the mail on Thursday. A mumbled hello and thank you when Arthur, the postman, nodded and handed me the envelope. $130. Mother was worried. I sat at the foot of the bed and penned a letter, reassuring her, I was alright, I was waiting for the tide to break so I could paddle to shore quietly, unnoticed. As soon as I was on sand, I would make it. I would head to the terrace at the head of the beach and buy a Popsicle, suckle on it while the sun beat down on my bare back and sweat greased in the long thickets of hair hanging from my head. I would be rich, respected, a known expert in my field – whatever field that was. I could do anything.

She would buy it. Parents want to be lied to, want to believe their children are working towards something incredible, something that will feed and clothe and, somehow, absolve them.

I signed the letter, tightened my belt, dropped it into the mailbox on the corner and kept walking.

I liked walking. Women were everywhere. I desired the women on the street. All of them. Plump women, meager women, women with eyebrows that said they would do some beautiful things, women with lips that snarled when they caught you watching them read the newspaper, women with friends, boyfriends, husbands, businessmen, women alone on their way to somewhere, dependent women, independent women, women with a stunning grasp of vocabulary, women that smile warmly when they lie, “I’m sorry, honey, but something has come up. I won’t be able to see you for coffee this afternoon.”

There was nobody watching at this hour. It was late, people were asleep and stuffed with roast dinners. My feet ached, the weary leather soles of my shoes doing little to stop the pebbles scraping. I knelt, leaned against a signpost, lit a cigarette, fumbled through my pockets. “Fuck,” my stomach grumbled.

[Buy.]

One Response to “BOULEVARD”

  1. Esin says:

    So devastatingly pure – I knew you’d like it.

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