Title: Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Disclaimer: I don't own SVU or the song "Boulevard of Broken Dreams." Hell, I don't even own the concept of jogging.
a/n: This idea just came to me. Tell me if you like it or not. Keep in mind that this is a result of insomnia and was written at 3 AM.
I wake up one night thinking about what always troubles me. I think about how I threw my life away. Unable to sleep, I drag myself out of bed, pull on a pair of gym shorts and an old NYPD t-shirt. I make my way down the steps and exit my building as quickly as I can. I run, not knowing where I'm going. I just needed to get out of there. Sitting all alone in my empty apartment makes me feel suffocated.
I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone
I turn down some side street that leads to God knows where. I'm just letting my feet go where they want to. The streets are deserted and the sound of my feet echoes for a long time. Each step I take, I become angrier and more intense. Before long, I'm sprinting my way down a back road. Running just always helps me organize my thoughts.
For my entire adult life, I've always thought about what I could have been. In high school, I had so many dreams of being something. It might sound cheesy, but I wanted to make a difference in the world. So I worked hard, got good grades in school, and was your average model student. I excelled in sports and always had lots of people hanging around me. I felt like nothing could stop me. I really believed in myself.
I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone
But when I started college, things changed. I met a nice girl named Kathy. She was great-beautiful, smart, everything to me. But I was a college kid, not really thinking about my future as a family man, but I was still stuck on changing the world. I was working towards my degree in political science, and I was doing quite well. Until that one night Kathy spent the night in my dorm room, we had never had sex. That was probably the biggest turning point in my life.
My feet still acting on their own, I weave my way into Manhattan. I don't know where exactly I'm going, but I hope once I get there, I'll find some answers, that I'll find something that reminds me why I'm still living.
My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone
When Kathy told me she was pregnant, I didn't know what to do. Being a good Catholic, I couldn't tell her to have an abortion. I told her I would help her get on her feet, but that was it. I was just going to abandon her and the baby. I was scared-scared that I was going to end up like my father. I thought about it for a long time. Eventually, I suggested that we get married and raise the child. I was stupid; I was a kid.
The roads beginning to look more and more familiar, I begin to have a better idea of where my feet are taking me. The faster I run, the more my anger and confusion grows. I look around at my surroundings and think about the people living in those apartments and whether or not they would understand how I feel, if they are doing what they dreamed of their entire life.
I'm walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone
When I told my father what I wanted to do with my life, he looked at me and laughed. He always wanted me to be a cop, just like him. Sometimes, I used to doubt myself. I used to think that maybe I was only just as good as my dad, or worse. But there were also times when I felt like I was on the top of the world, like nothing could stop me. The day I announced the news that Kathy and were going to get married and that I would become a cop to support them, my dad just gave me a look that said, "I told you so."
As I pass different landmarks on my jog, I think off all the places near here where I've been called to the scene of a rape-murder. I just try to imagine how many others' dreams were crushed on these very streets. My blood surging, I look behind and see all those dreams I chased when I was younger, following after me like dead souls. I turn and run faster than I can ever remember.
Read between the lines
What's fed up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs
To know I'm still alive and I walk alone
Suddenly, all those broken dreams surround me, coming closer and closer. I want to just give up, but I keep on fighting. I grab my head with my hands, as if I'm trying to rip all those memories out of my mind. It's also a sign that I'm not dead, like them. I'm here and I'm living and I need to find some way to go on.
I know that I'll find that thing that subconsciously keeps me going when I make a left at the next street. I'm positive that I know where I'm going and what I'll find there. But my mind still isn't with me, it's off wandering in what could've been.
My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone
Even though I know there's something in the "now," I still feel stuck in "then." I threw my entire life away, only for that person to turn around and leave me crushed…again. I'm beginning to feel more relaxed, but another image soon enters my mind. I look up at the still-dark sky and I can see my late father's face looking down on me, laughing. He knew I was a screw-up from the day I was born. He died before he could see how good of a cop I was. I'm still bent on the fact that I will never know if he approves of me.
I pause outside the building I've been accidentally-on purpose jogging to for a minute. I don't even know why I'm there; it just seemed like the only place to go. I collect my thoughts for a moment, allowing myself time to think about what I'll say when I ring the bell.
I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk alone
My finger is poised on the button that rings the bell I her apartment. It's strange, I think, that my boulevard of broken dreams leads me here. Maybe there is something for me; maybe everything does happen for a reason. I ring the bell twice before she answers.
"Liv, it's El," I say when she asks who it is. She presses the button that lets me in and I drag myself up the stairs to her apartment. She's waiting at the door for me when I arrive.
"El, come on in," she says, welcoming me into her apartment. She's used to these late-night/early morning visits.
Yep, I think to myself, there is something for me to live for. But this still is my boulevard of broken dreams, and nobody can fight the demons of the past but me. Because deep down in my heart, I still believe that I could've been something.