Heartbreak Blvd.

Never Saw A Butterfly

Bree

I walked home from school after another boring ass day and tightened my shrinking jacket around me. I have to remember to take my next check and get a new coat because these New York winters ain't no joke.

As I walked I tightened the grip on my bag as I saw men yelling up flights of buildings at their girlfriends or baby mamas kicking them out and throwing clothes and shoes out of the window. One woman threw a shirt that almost landed on me if I wasn't walking at my fast pace. Another woman yelled shit like "Go be with her then cheating motherfucker!!" like there weren't kids playing in the street right in front of her.

Women walking with there kids going God knows where in this cold. Hopefully home, but probably to a shelter. I recognized one of the ladies as the mother of a little girls hair I used to braid, Aisha. That was back when her parents were together though, when they had money, and before her dad lost his job for being exactly what my mom is.

A fucking basehead.

I shrugged off the fact that her once smiling and beautiful mother had messy hair and a stained waitress uniform. Her dad is probably out somewhere getting high while her mom is struggling to get by with 3 hungry kids. Bet money she feeds them before herself though.

I walked a little further and saw a girl I used to go to school with I haven't seen in a while. Once I saw her I found out why. She looked like she was around 8 or 9 months and miserable as hell. I shook my head thinking of how she's probably going to end up like Aisha's mom. Dead broke with a baby to take care of. I would feel bad for her but it's their own faults why they end up like that. They get their noses wide open for a nigga that just want some pussy and then act heartbroken when he leaves her with the kid.

That's why I don't plan on having kids, ever. Shit, I have to worry about my own stomach first. The snow picked up and I silently got happy when I saw my building in front of me, then sad when I realized I'd have to deal with my my mother.

I walked in and went to my room first and put my books down. I walked around the house and figured it was entirely too quiet for my mother to be here. I wen trio her room just in case and found her lying in the bed with her pipe beside her in the floor. I cleaned it all up as usual and put her things back in her night stand. Dragging her to the shower I shook my head.

I'd been cleaning up after my mom for 5 years and everytime for the first year I was always so scared and upset about it but after my father started beating the both of us I started to grow as cold as him. Now I just clean my mother up and make sure she's not dead.

After all, that's what daughters do for their mothers right ?

Once she was cleaned up and back in the bed I made dinner for my dad, cleaned up, and went back to my room before he could come home and do something dumb like he usually does.

I laid in the bed with my eyes closed like I usually do and thought about my life. Sometimes it didn't bother me and other times I wonder why God gave me these challenges. Other days I wonder if God is even real or is that's something people tell themselves in order to feel like life isn't the shit that's it really is.

I got shaken out of my thoughts as I heard gun shots in front of my building and a woman's screams. Its hard to tell how old the woman is just by a scream but if I had to guess I'd say around the same as my mom so it was probably her son that got shot. I know you're thinking "How the hell you know this and that's not some normal shit Bree" But when you've lived around it this long it seems like everything happens in fast motion. Babies being abandoned, growing up poor, gangs to feel safe, run-ins with the police who couldn't give less than a damn about any of us on this block, Welfare, drugs.