BACK WHEN YOU WERE RIVER PHOENIX — JENNIFER HARVEY
/You wore crop tops and flashed a peek of soft abdomen from above denim cut-offs. Rubbed the frayed edges between your finger and thumb, and listened to what all the other girls were saying. How they dreamed of him. Then, one day, you dreamed of him too.
You were wary of Cobain, but pretended not to be, because fitting in was all that mattered. You thought maybe one day you’d try and explain this to him, just to see the frown crease his ice blue eyes. Understanding him, took a long time.
You drew an index finger across the map and searched for Idaho, listened to the squeak of skin on paper, as the friction pulled you westward. The sound returning, unbidden in the night, as you dreamed of black bitumen, and yellow lines fading to some point in the distance. When you woke you could still feel the longing in your thighs.
You thought becoming a man meant being this boy. This boy who stared at flowers, and let his head fall upon the shoulder of someone stronger. Someone he knew would outlive him. You thought, when you fell in love, it would be with this boy. Always this boy.
You thought the world would evolve towards something like him. Something softer, kinder and a little slower. And as you waited for it, you pretended not to hear the hiss and spit of vipers, and the motorcycle roar of the future as it revved down the strip towards him.
Jennifer Harvey is a Scottish writer now living in Amsterdam. Her work has appeared in various magazines and anthologies in the US and the UK. She is a Resident Reader for Carve Magazine, and when not writing can be found wandering the Amsterdam canals and dreaming up new stories. You can find her online at: www.jenharvey.net or on Twitter at @JenAnneHarvey.
