Creative Writing Portfolio By Reilly McGlone
Contents: 1. Beach Town Relics (A prose piece) 2. Hawthorne Hops (An example of fictional, short-storytelling) 3. Neither Here nor There (A poetry collection) 4. More to a Heartthrob (A subjective essay)
1.
Beach Town Relics In the winter, we cannot recognize ourselves dressed in our mother’s lace. Shrouded in gold, and you in pearls, we’re whisked away by our fathers cinching, leather grips to the old fishing district. With its nose turned up high on the hill, looking down at the rest our desolate, iced-over tourist town, sits the yacht club. A setting as lively in the summer as it is in winter, where the events held to keep the ennui at bay are disguised as something more-something meaningful. Every wine tasting night, every father-daughter dance, every Christmas dinner all just excuses keeping the townsfolk from their own perilous restlessness until the sun shines over our brimming little beach town again. It’s a place where you and I have to play pretend just to survive. Exploited and used by our families like props and trophies, we’re paraded around like cattle, forced to carve out our widest smiles for the wolves dressed in bow ties and boat shoes. I swear I can still feel the sting, well into the warmer months, from where the old widows slap our hands and hiss “stupid girls! Not like that! Smile with your teeth!” Our cheeks would burn, abashed and sore. Nevertheless, we’d comply, too afraid of the consequences that would ensue had we not. With our bare bones exposed, the wolves could carry on gawking, our fathers bragging, and our mothers could breathe poised sighs of relief knowing their daughters were safe for another season. “There’s something unsettling about their eyes,” you declared one night at a dinner dance, cookie swap, fundraising event or whatever it was at the time. Sometimes we found refuge, hugging our knees underneath tables devoid of any place cards or centerpiece. “It’s like staring into the very nights that claimed their lovers.” “The widows?” “If you catch a close enough look, you can see them capsize.” In spring, we shed our skin between the trees and wash away girlhood in the creek. The world around us is still aside from the trembling in our knees, scraped and laced with diamond pavement and concrete. We’d welcome the season’s respite with offerings carried away on the backs of bugs. We’d feast on blood oranges, rip them apart with our nails and wince at the metallic taste. Still, we couldn’t get enough. The entire town couldn’t get enough. The widows thaw back into witches, the wolves suspiciously retreat. Spring was a renaissance, and from high up in the trees-our kingdoms away from home-we had front row seats. I wore mud smeared cheeks well, you wore grass stains better. We used strands from the tears in the knees on our jeans to reinforce our own loose threads; we used our t-shirts as tourniquets. Naked and raw, running in the woods like infants who just discovered the capabilities of their own legs. All we had to fear then were our mothers. Still numb from the winter, the wolves would run off with their rabbits, leaving them empty nesting, scathing and bitter. They wouldn’t like what we got up to in the forests. “My mom is gonna kill me,” you’d say, with dirty hands mimicking a knife to your throat. “Don’t joke like that.” The response to my demand did not pass through your lips. It was not your voice that carried the question, nor was it one that either of us recognized. But we could recognize the
feeling it had brought with it, and the butterflies who had made their cocoons in the pits of our stomachs began to beat against our insides. “Who’s joking?” Come summer, our town becomes overrun like the invasive plants down by the marshes, the ones that swallow you whole lest you got too close. We could never see the tourists coming. It would start with the faint footsteps in late May, only to be heard in symphony with the night owl’s cries. Never bring it up at breakfast, the point would be moot. Even when they get closer and the footsteps began to sound like a stampede, nobody else seemed to notice. Or if they did, they’d never admit to it. We could never see the tourists coming: all we could do was fall asleep to sound of their deafening march and wake up on June first to crowded beaches and congested streets. The mosquitos came with them, moving through the heavy humidity in thick sheets. Bug spray was never enough, but you and I were smart enough to even bother with that stuff, and the witches in the lighthouses were too wise to. We’d make our way through the crowded streets-hiding from more than just the sun underneath the wide brims of our hats-to go see them. We’d find them, only after ascending the rusty lighthouse stairs for what seemed like an eternity, concocting spells in the same, casual way that old ladies like to bake. Mud and moss, moth wings and cicada shells, crushed berries that looked less like berries and more like blood. Things we couldn’t quite explain. “It’s protection,” explained one witch. “Keep it close, and cherish it like your youth,” said another. They only ever spoke in metaphors, riddles, or in abstract language that only elicited quizzical expressions from you and I. We’d thank them all the same. On our way back to town, we’d take the detour route to test out our new protection spells. Far off underneath the canopies of the red cedar swamp where they gathered to store the blood they collect, the mosquitoes avoided us like a plague, disgusted by the vials that hung around our necks. “If you listen, I mean if you really listen closely and if you stay quiet enough…” You grabbed my hand, trying to quiet me and at the very moment our skin made contact, a blinding thread of heat lightning weaved its way across the sky. Followed by a clap of thunder with all too perfect timing. You simply carried on with what you were trying to say and to this day, you’ve never said a word about the electric hum that followed us home that evening. “…you can hear the mosquitos whispering.” I heard them cursing the witches, telling secrets…and I could’ve sworn I heard something about love. Then came fall, when we’d sit in the graveyards at sunset. There, we’d count the number of new names and unmarked graves, taken by the bugs or the masses. We could never see them coming, but from the graveyards, we had a perfect view of the bridge that guided away the tourists. Oh, how we loved to watch them leave. “They’re the lucky ones” you’d say. “Sure are…” I’d solemnly agree, and we’d carry on watching, living vicariously.
You’d inform me of the brightness in my eyes quickly fading, and I’d inform you of the sorry state of your sun-kissed cheeks. As the sun went down over our little beach town, I’d study you closely, thinking in blueprints and escape plans. The trees would shed their own skin, and bend to the will of the wind like skeletons. While the wolves would reemerge, well rested and mean, the witches snuck goodbye letters into our hiding spots by the creek. Ignoring the weather reports that kept our fathers glued to the TV, we’d judge how bad the winter would be by how hungry the wolves were. Our mothers were always far too busy to even think of winter, blind to any impending doom ahead. They frantically packed and prepped our oldest siblings for university, getting ready to send them off over the bridge with the last of the tourists. “They’re the lucky ones…” I’d whisper, waving goodbye at the edge of my driveway. “Sure are…” you mouthed from across the street. The minute the minivans were out of sight, as soon as our mothers retreated and our fathers were back glued to the weather, we’d make our way to the creek one last time. Before the ice came to claim it, before our mothers could catch on to where we disappear to in the spring, we retrieved the letters-left by witches and signed by widows, apologizing for what they might do come winter-and left in haste, without any trace to ever tie us to having been there. Come the fall, we fall asleep clutching letters left by witches and signed by widows, holding on to empty vials of what that were once full of protection spells and gripping the notion that one day, we’ll escape ourselves. “Such imaginations those girls have…”I heard my mother whisper into the telephone one night as she poked her head into my bedroom. “Isn’t it something?” your mother asked and answered into the receiver. Pretending to be asleep was both a natural talent and a survival tactic.
****** I took inspiration for this strange, poetically mysterious piece of prose from many different sources. I became enamoured with a writing style called “regional gothic” which is a Tumblr-based literary genre that applies traditional Southern Gothic characteristics to other specific geographical regions. I drew inspiration from my own experiences of growing up in New England-splashing in creeks and visiting lighthouses-and threaded in this newfound appreciation for uncanny aspects in literature. For a better understanding of how to incorporate this inexplicable strangeness into my own writing, I read Das Unheimliche, Sigmund Freud’s 1919 essay that speaks on the eeriness of what is familiar. I was aiming to write an evocative piece of literature that was both perplexing and foreboding, where the reader has to really take it upon themselves to interpret what exactly is going on. I appreciate the sort of push-and-pull throughout the piece that has the reader fluctuating between believing that the events in the piece are that of two children's imaginations and questioning if they’re happening in real life.
2.
The bell rings, ushering a wave of my classmates into the hallways. I can’t even hear myself think for a moment over the sounds of scraping chairs and the rumble and shouts of students eager to get to lunch. I myself am not as easily enticed by the smell of mystery meat wafting from the cafeteria, and find myself eager to escape our classroom for different reasons. Hurriedly shoving my wrinkled notes into my backpack and making a beeline for the door, I almost slip through the current of students before I’m caught by the collar by Mr. Darbus. “Thought you could get away that easily, huh?” He chuckled, releasing his grip on my uniform. With my back still turned, I watch wistfully as students file past the doorway. “What is it now, Darbs?” A ghost of a sigh escapes my lips and I reluctantly turn to face my English teacher. Taking a seat at his desk, Mr. Darbus began to rifle through a stack of papers, glancing over the tops of his glasses as he so often did when concentrating on something. “While I appreciate the ever so endearing nicknames, Ms. Chase,” he didn’t bother to look up as he spoke, “I believe we’ve already had that conversation before?” “What conversation?” “Ah. Well,” he removed a sheet from the stack while I hovered over his desk, “the one where I explained how rude it is to call teachers by anything other than their names. “Right, must’ve forgotten about that one. Sorry, Jason.” “Ms. Chase, please!” His overly exasperated sigh made it clear he wasn’t up for my games today, but that didn’t stop me from playing them anyways. “Alright, alright fine.” I straightened my back and cleared my throat, and in my most proper voice, said: “What is it you would like to talk to me about, Mr. Darbus?” Maybe it was my childlike features, chubby cheeks, and long eyelashes, that made it so impossible for one to stay mad at me. Or perhaps, it’s simply the fact that Darbus and I go way back. He is my father's closest friend, after all. Though, truthfully, I think it has to do with the fact that I’ve been working with him as a member of Hawthorne's Creative Writing Club for two years now and so he, more so than anyone, is well aware of my capabilities. So in turn, I am less like a student to him and more like a friend with whom he has to walk on eggshells with. “Your submission, Ms. Chase.” Hardly a surprise. I could have predicted his quarrels with my piece the moment I submitted the damn thing. I knew he’d have something to say the moment I felt him grip my
collar and pull me away from the safety of the lunchroom and most importantly, I knew all this while I was writing it. That was the whole point. The piece in question was something I submitted to Hawthorne Hops. See, our pathetic excuse for a literary club with it’s five whole members, along with the yearbook club and journalism students, come together every other week after school to publish a literary magazine. Hawthorne Hops is an equally pathetic excuse for a lit-mag where students can submit writing, ask for advice, whatever, whatever. It’s soul-crushing work, having to submit to and work on something that not only lacks substance but also the cutting edge tongue of real press. Nobody really treats it like a real publication, so I don’t go out of my way to either. It keeps Darbus off my back, though, so I agree to submit to it anyways. I watched my scraggly haired teacher for what seemed like a long, long time as he examined my work. Finally, looking up from the creased paper in his hands, he spoke. “It’s far too-” “Well-written for the plebians that roam the hallways of this school?” That one didn’t even warrant a chuckle, just a furrowed eyebrow and an irritated palm to the face. “No. Not at all. In fact, I was going to say that it is far too-” “Evocative for Hawthorne Hills simple-minded and painfully ordinary student body?” “You are ruthless today, aren’t you? And besides, being ordinary and being a plebeian are synonymous-hardly, might I add-so now you’re just being redundant.” One might have mistaken me sinking into a seat at one of the front row desks or the burning pink that crept across my cheeks as defeat. In reality, I was just ready for Darbus to stop eating away at my own lunchtime and was growing tired of my own games just as much as he was. Darbus went on to explain that my piece was indeed well-written, but of course, was not without its faults. He offered nothing but constructive criticism, and every remark sounded promising...until he told me it had no place in the hops. “I mean, really, Alex. Surely, you had to have seen this coming.” He gestured towards the piece now laying in front of me. The way he used my first name made me grimace. He only ever did so when he was trying to soften the blow of something. “Like I said, It’s a great piece, but realistically speaking, where do you see a place for this in The Hop?” My palms grew clammy. I-being the self proclaimed Gonzo that I was-could not go back to writing more articles about the food in the cafeteria or poems about fall in the quad. I just couldn’t! As if I had never heard something so absurd in my life, I pushed the desk out from underneath me and marched towards his desk. “In the prose section, duh!” I slammed the mess of wrinkles down onto his desk. “Well, lucky for you the prose section for this month is filled. Reya submitted that wonderful piece about thrift shopping, and Blake, what a pleasant surprise his piece on self-expression was!” My blood began to boil at the mention of Blake, who beat me in the spelling bee in the fifth grade. The disliking I took towards him had less to do with an age-old grudge over the spelling of the word “ubiquitous” and more to do with the fact that ever since he started dating my best friend, Jessica, she’s hardly had time for me. “Of course, you’d already know all that, Alex, if you took your job as editor in chief seriously. “Okay, first of all, I do. Second of all, since when is Blake even a writer?”
I could barely get the question out before Darbus retaliated with a tiresome: “since I’ve known him.” It wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t followed up with “and besides, what makes you more entitled to the spot than he is?” “Well with all this talk about self-expression, don’t you think it’s a little hypocritical that you won't let me express myself!?” I threw my hands towards the ceiling melodramatically. “Alex, please, His patience clearly wearing thin. “When you begin studying journalism in college, assuming you’re not in jail by then, nobody is going to find this snarky, entitled bit you’re doing the least bit cute. The piece is much too bleak, and if I’m being honest, morbid. It has no place in a school publication.” My fists were now balled at my sides, my fingernails threatening to puncture the skin of my palms. I checked out after the words “snarky, entitled bit” and now all I could hear was the angry ringing in my own ears. This w as my last straw. “Fine. Just know The Hop won’t be hearing from me anymore,” and with that, I finally stormed out into the hall just as another bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. ****** This is an excerpt from a short story I wrote after a period of self-examination where I realized too many of the characters I write favor me. I took it upon myself to challenge myself to write a character who is the complete opposite of who I am as a person. In turn, my character Alex was born and I went on to develop a short story about how submitting to her school’s publication helped her become more self aware. Throughout the story, Alex uses writing to overcome some of her more problematic personality traits as sets out on a journey of self-improvement. This initial interaction between her and her teacher was a sort of turning point for her that is further developed later in the story. I believe this particular excerpt from the story to be a decent example of creative story-telling and example of dialogue.
3.
Neither Here nor There: A Collection of Poems
Houses and Homes. Becca, I loved you every day for an entire season. I loved you when fall came and stripped you of your green, I loved you even when gold had to go. Even if I am considered selfish for it, even if I am in the business of metaphorical real estate, I’m not quite ready to let you go. Nor do I think I will be, anytime soon at least. You are the cold ghost of hardwood floors meeting fireplace warmth. You are everything rustic and lovely wrapped up into one little mountainside home. How are you so comfortable being so vulnerable, Becca, with bare, log cabin bones? You, with your heart on your sleeve. You, hidden deep beneath heavy blankets of snow. You were the warmest place I have ever known...until you were the coldest. Amber, you were the rare sight of an eviction notice hanging on the door of a luxe, upper east side apartment. You were rubble and diamond and tar and everything that glittered and yet, nothing about you was gold. You were both the foundation of gentrified streets and the fire escapes where the rich kids went to weep; their tears as much a part of you as the rust and the madness and every spec of dust you never had to clean. The inner workings of you bore close similarities to the inner workings of large cities. You learned early on how cold the “real world” could be. The way your father said “the real world,” always with some dreary, far away sigh, felt like a knife in your side. You learned early on to function on too many, too strong, too expensive cups of coffee. There was never a lack of high-end commodities and everything was a luxury necessity, like your temperature controlled shower with all those excessive features. Just another thing your father liked to brag about. And still, despite your perfect water pressure, you could never wash away decisions that stuck to your skin like that tattoo you told me you can never recall getting. Amber, you were Calacatta countertops, cold to the touch and lined with an endless supply of blow to blow through. Nobody ever stayed for visiting hours, did they? You had everything, once
upon a time, but you never wanted any of it. You, just in search of a dining table and for someone to know how to help you. Or at least be willing to… What is there to say about you, Emma? You are a glass house and I came to throw stones. What is the mailing address again? I’d like to send an apology letter. Though I suppose it wouldn’t matter much anyways, mail always got lost on its way to you. You, hidden deep within the woods underneath a dark canopy. You, skinny like the dirt road that ends too abruptly. I was misguided, misunderstood and misdirected. Or was that you? Or was that us? It’s been so long, hasn’t it? Misery loves company, so let’s throw a dinner party. Your place or mine? I know you’re still rebuilding walls from that one failed trust fall. Angela, you are a not a singular house and you are not a singular home. You are every house that makes up every home in a neighborhood where I wish to reside in some far off time. Madison, you were neither a house nor a home, nor a neighborhood made up of a mix of the two. You were the congested streets that wrapped around the busy city that is my mind. Shannon, a house is not a home but I never could teach you the difference. Grant, for a long time you felt like my own house, but it’s important for every individual to be their very own home, so I had to leave. And then there’s me, a lonely metaphorical real-estate agent or a creative carpenter, depending on who you ask. Me, an introvert no matter who you ask. Me, trying to navigate through a world that depends on who you know. These are the ones I have known as houses and as homes, places where I’ve left bits and pieces of myself for better or for worse.
Very Girl Interrupted. Juvenile words and a coming of age curse A little girl learned to flirt In attempts to subdue malicious white coats Force-feeding Depakote Clipboard carrying devils in disguise...
I’m Running Away Again. oddities commodities things of great importance bright with nostalgic presence from junk drawer beauties with no real significance to trinkets and tidbits odds and ends and pictures now plagued with indifference to pack or to leave? the great debate postcards posters patching up walls forbidden fruit and plush snakes hanging from trees tiny glowing Apple screens tote bins in attics and eves bedside necessities all packed up in what were once cardboard kingdoms in a little place called Adolescence covered in band-aid packing tape and Sharpie ABC’s forget a BiC pen I’m playing getaway driver you’re burning rubber scraping knees you are unconditional love in the form of old Nickelodeon game show reruns let’s forget the ice cream cake in the freezer let’s watch Legends of the Hidden Temple until our eyes bleed Depakote dust settles on our spines like LSD and we’ll melt into the floorboards only to then collect enough of ourselves in empty moving boxes to pretend we’re optimists you’ll help me put away the contents of my bookshelves and together we’ll find ourselves again
****** The collection of poems that I have titled “Neither Here nor There” was written during a very transitional phase of my life when I was graduating high school and getting ready to move out of my parent’s house. This was a time when I felt an incredible disconnect from the world around me, and a time where I was forced to examine my relationships with others and my place in the world. Each piece shares similar themes of examining one's place in the world through interactions with others and one’s own environment. The first piece “Houses and Homes” is a prose-poem, an homage of sorts, to the most significant people in my life. As I was moving away, seeing my friends off to college and going through this transitional stage of life is when this idea to equate people to houses came to me. Houses, of course, are very stagnant structures while people are constantly on the move, growing and changing. I thought by comparing them, while examining just what differentiated a house from a home, I could find some comfort in the duality of it all. As the title suggests, the piece “Very Girl Interrupted” was inspired by Susanna Kaysen’s 1993 memoir “Girl Interrupted.” At the time this poem was written, I was struggling with leaving the safety of high school and getting ready to enter into “the real world,” as it was often described by the adults in my life. I greatly related to Susanna in her own struggles of balancing her world inside inpatient psychiatric care and her life on “the outside.” Finally, the piece titled “I’m Running Away Again” was initially composed on the flap of a cardboard moving box, which is all too fitting for the theme of the piece itself. I was in the middle of packing up my high school bedroom when a few lines from the poem came to me. It felt so urgent and significant that I was compelled to write it down instantly. So, with the Sharpie I was using to label my boxes, I began to scrawl this poem on the box labeled “SHELF DECOR.” There are callbacks to moments I had shared with my friends during my final days before moving which ties in some nostalgia to the overall theme of new beginnings.
4. There’s More to a Heartthrob: An Essay on River Phoenix In 1991, Sassy, the defunct teen magazine marketed to the female fans of alternative and indie rock during the late eighties and early nineties, published an article titled “I Saw River Phoenix Brush His Teeth.” While the article itself was about as eloquent and stimulating as I could expect any teen-centric tabloid from the nineties to be, the title was truly redeeming. If it had not been for that thought provoking title, I might have found the entire article-which mostly just consisted of a bland retelling of events that transpired during the interviewers visit with River-to be a waste of time. It is a recurring pattern I’ve seen, where the media just can’t seem to do River’s essence any justice. However in regards to the title, even before I dove into the interview where River introduced his band and discussed his new movie Dogfight, I understood what it all meant. The title of the article was the authors attempt of making note of being able to witness such an otherworldly being partake in something so trivial and human. Even today, journalists often underestimate young people’s ability to both comprehend and desire thought-provoking media, so it didn’t come as a surprise that a magazine written for teenagers in the nineties lacked substance. As I began to read descriptions of River and his “shiny, silky blonde hair” and “perfect skin”, I began to realize that the author and I may have shared a difference in opinion about what it was that made River so otherworldly. River Phoenix-born River Jude Bottom-was an Oregon native turned Hollywood superstar. He came onto the scene at the tender age of ten, starring in what he later described as “phony” television commercials before landing more substantial roles in Hollywood blockbusters. River, along with his younger brother Joaquin and his two younger sisters, Liberty and Rainbow, had an incredibly unconventional childhood. A family that bred such extraordinary talent had proved to be anything but ordinary.
River’s parents, John and Arlyn were self-titled hippies who met during the days of LSD counterculture in the late sixties. After delving into parenthood and renouncing their freeform life of drug use to become devout “missionaries” to David Berg’s cult The Children of God, the Phoenix's raised their children just outside of Caraca, Venezuela. John and Arlyn had good intentions and for a time being, life amongst their fellow Children of God community felt like a perfectly stable way to raise children. David Berg was also known to market the cult as a way of helping young people to get off drugs, covering up the negative connotations of cult living. Their family was able to spend time around like-minded people and though they never had compensation for the work they did, what they did have was shelter and purpose. In later years, River went on to describe his living conditions as “filthy, rat-infested shacks” and said that if he and Rainbow didn’t receive enough handouts and spare change from handing out cult pamphlets and singing on the streets, the family wasn’t able to eat. However, having to provide for his family at such a young age and the lack of provisions or housing with adequate plumbing were just minor details on a much longer list of struggles River faced during childhood. The cult in which River and his siblings were raised was one that encouraged incest, adultery and pedophilia, all for the sake of pseudo “self-expression and exploration.” River reported that he lost his virginity at the age of four but had “blacked out” most of his memories from the darker side of the cult. At the time, John and Arlyn could not have known the degree to which the cult’s teaching was damaging their children and Joaquin himself has said that he considers his parents to be “entirely innocent believers.” Better word became evident to the Phoenix’s as the cults “exploratory sexual-play” and exploitation of their children became too much for the parents to handle. They escaped The Children of God by sneaking into the US on an ocean freighter. This, of course, happened well after the damage had been done. The first time I witnessed the raw sensitivity that catapulted River into stardom was when I watched Rob Reiner’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Stand By Me when I was eight years old. Taking on the role of Chris Chambers, a teary-eyed River Phoenix sat next to his co-star Wil
Wheaton assuming the role of Gordie LaChance in a scene where the boys shared an intimate moment while venting about their home lives. It was evident to me, even as an eight-year-old, that there was something otherworldly about River as I watched him dripping with raw emotion, crying on Wil’s shoulder. I carried my appreciation for River and his vulnerability well into adulthood. It wasn’t until I began reading as many articles as I could and reading books such as “Last Night at the Viper Room” when I uncovered River’s complex backstory. What I saw in River that could only be described as otherworldly had always been some inexplicable thing, like a sense of childlike wonder, that rattled around in my head all these years and upon reading, It was like I suddenly had this bittersweet explanation for it all. It was his lack of education, an innocence of sorts. It was his trauma. It was his unique experiences while growing up, his morals, his world views. It was all these different things that helped shape River into who he was that made him this otherworldly being that I-and may others- not only looked up to but connected with on a deep, emotional level. Wil Wheaton once described his Stand By Me co-star as “this raw, emotional open wound who felt everything.” One could speculate that River’s rawness and ability to connect with such emotionally troubled characters could be derived from his own trauma. River was underwhelmingly uneducated in terms of schooling but he made up for he lacked in talent and street smarts. Already struggling with never having been properly educated, River also dealt with untreated Dyslexia which in some ways, was as much of an asset in his acting career as much as it was a struggle. According to George Sluizer-the director of River Phoenix’s very last film “Dark Blood” which was the only film to portray River as a villain and that remained unfinished for 19 years after the actor's death- River was “special in the sense that he was very instinctive.” His dyslexia meant that “he couldn’t learn two lines without making a mistake and he really had to understand what he said, to feel it, which gave him a certain strength.” Reiner also made a similar remark on the set of Stand By Me and said that “River didn’t have a lot of technique. You just turned the camera on and he would tell the truth.” He admitted that every time he sees the
campfire scene between River and Wil, he cries over how honest and raw it is. While River’s tribulations as a child are not justifiable, it’s true that it did give him a certain edge in his acting career. Throughout his years as a star, he never once revealed where he derived his inspiration from, though it is evident to anyone with any understanding of his background. Aside from being an incredibly accomplished actor who was able to draw from his own experiences to exquisitely channel his strong feelings into his work, River was also a musician, activist, as well as just an all-around kind and extremely charitable person. River carried his activism with him wherever he went, whether that meant sporting t-shirts adorned with anti-fur slogans during red carpet events, making efforts to convert his friends and fans to veganism or hosting benefit concerts with his band Aleka’s Attic. He even wrote an article in 1990 for Seventeen Magazine about conservation for Earth Day, a piece that was much more intellectual than the ones written about him at the time. With all the good he did during his twenty-three years on the very planet he so consciously tried to protect, it’s no surprise that I often find myself frustrated with the media that only remarks on his looks. Even worse, the media that only remembers him for his tragic death and paints him out be a crazed Hollywood drug addict. These portrayals usually failed to mention that he most likely used drugs as a way of coping with feeling like he didn’t fit in with the Hollywood he was living and with his unresolved trauma. River himself had ranked acting far below the unifying power of music and animal rights in terms of things he felt were most important to him. Meaning, it isn’t fair to call him just another Hollywood heartthrob. Nor is it fair to label him as just another drug-addicted actor or remember him only for his tragic, premature death. River Phoenix very well might have gone on to change the world with a well thought out plan for conservation, or at the very least, he would have converted a few more people to veganism. Despite all the adversity he faced while growing up, the fact that he kept nothing but pure intentions and a heart that was dead set on helping the world was what made River Phoenix truly otherworldly.
****** “More to a Heartthrob� is a subjective essay I wrote about my biggest inspiration, River Phoenix. I’ve looked up to River since I was a child and even though I was born well after his death in 1993, through his work I found empowerment in my own sensitivity. I felt it was important to make the distinction between the way the media often portrays River and the thing I personally find significant about him and his career because of how important they are to me. Being able to channel your hardships into creativity, being an activist for the causes you feel strongly about, being a genuinely good person and finding power in sensitivity are all morally important to me. Despite the fact that River represents all of the above, it is often overlooked in the media which inspired me to write about River.