✧ iridescent lights ✧

⊹ about ⊹

NAME : river nalin brooks

AGE : twenty six

GENDER : cis man, he/him

SEXUALITY : bisexual

BAND : maggot mouth

POSITION : lead singer & rhythm guitar

⊹ aesthetics  ⊹

red wine stained mouths ; flickering neon lights illuminating your skin ; sweat dripping from your hair as you scream the lyrics to your favourite songs ; love bites aching beneath clothes ; smudged eyeliner on a sweat glistened face ; the aggressive strum of a guitar screaming before the set begins ;  a devouring smile hungry for the night ; loosely buttoned shirts ; waking up with a lost voice ; tendrils of cigarette smoke catching glimpses of stage lights ; rings adorning bloodied knuckles ; spray paint on your fingertips ; cheap wine shared on park benches ; a destruction so sweet ; calloused hands from years of practice ; making your own rules to play by ; stumbling home with the warmth of street lights ;

⊹ pinterest ⊹

river brooks   ⊹   maggot mouth inspo

⊹ about ⊹

River would never meet his father, he came to realise that at an early age. But that didn’t mean he’d never see the man, or hear endless... endless stories about him. He’d hear a great deal about the man that never offered to be in his life, wasn’t even on his birth certificate. And yet, his mother insisted on giving him the same last name. His mother, Keshini who much preferred to go by ‘Kitty’. River never much liked her taste for names.

Brooks. Would that name cling to him like a shadow he can’t shake. Only it was more the case that River was there, standing in this shadow of a man he could never live up to. Ty Brooks. Now that name might sound familiar to you, and well, it would be. He was one of the most infamous rockstars of his generation. And how River’s mother adored him.

She had every one of his albums in her collection, she’d have posters of the man and tickets she kept from his concerts. She even boasts about that time she got to tour around in their van for a stretch of time. Honestly, River blocks out most of that story every time she recounts it with such pride. Because that, that right there would be the reason he was brought into this world.

And while his father might have had nothing to do with him, or his mother after the fact- he would be his mother’s greatest trophy. Her pride and joy. She’d flaunt him around the same way she would the signed picture she had of her and Ty in the back of a touring bus. It only got worse as the years went on and he reflected too many of his father’s features.

She was only twenty at the time, promptly disowned by her parents and left to raise this new born on her own. And even though he would be the son of this great famous rockstar, that she still adores for whatever the reason, she would just be a single mother left struggling to get by. Waitressing at whatever restaurant would take her, leaving River with the next door neighbours for hours on end, or sometimes just sat alone in the apartment with the television when they weren’t available.

Eventually, even this idea of Ty Brooks son stopped being exciting. By the time he was in primary school he’d stop hearing things like, ‘Honey I could just devour you’, and his mother would stop calling him this shiny cherry, plump and ready to be bitten into. He starts to wonder if she sunk her teeth too far and found that black pit inside him. He’d start feeling like more and more of a burden every day. School fees, extracurricular activities, and this reminder of her youth that would be slowly slipping away from her.

Despite the way he felt though, River would know to no end that his mother would love him, and do absolutely anything in the world for him. But often times, in this world more than one thing can be true at the same time. She can love, and adore her child- and still at the same time have that sinking feeling that steps too close to resentment. Because she never got the person she wanted to be, never got to have fun, or continue finding her life. She was a mother before she knew it, and that meant her whole life had to go on the back burner.

In time, he’d stop thinking about his father, he’d stop seeing him when he looks into the mirror, and stop considering that he’s inherited too many features of a man he’s never met. When he became reckless at school, that was when everyone would see it. A dangerous smile, and the same fire burning in his head. Something inviting, promising to gloriously burn you in his flame. But if River was going to do anything, it would be make his own name for himself.

With a debauched tongue promising the darkest nights a sliver of salvation, River would grow hungry for the world. He’d want to sink his teeth into it. He’s good at this, turning his boredom into other’s problems. Or delight, depending on how they took his attention.

He’d give his mother space, moving out to a small apartment when he could, letting her get some semblance of a life back. If you asked him though if he’d still do it now, knowing that he’d see her at all the same clubs as him, dancing like she isn’t a day over 25 in an attempt to reclaim a lost youth... he might have reconsidered... he’d tell his bandmates that would be the first reason he wanted to move to the city.

Guitar was something he wanted to start playing when he was seven, and his mother agreed to- after all it might have been a good creative outlet for ‘a child with as many emotions as him.’ And something he tried to give up on by the age of ten. But Kitty wouldn’t allow it, saying she’d already spent too much buying him the instrument and forcing him to practice every evening after school for at least an hour. He hates that it’s what he picked now. And he hates even more that music is the only thing he’s good at. It’s payed off at least, as the years past practice became second nature, and eventually became something he enjoyed again. Since then he got into interest of picking up a few instruments here and there. Most would be easy enough for him to pick up and attempt a few basics on, usually he’d write the ideas of songs like that before he had a band. But his strongest point will always be his guitar skills.

It was easy for River to fall in love with being adored, the way others look at him when he’s on stage. When he flashes a wide toothed grin, and watches the others melt. He doesn’t know what he enjoys more about playing; the admiration or the chaos that comes with their music. Eyeliner smudged down cheeks, thrashing heads, calloused fingers still bleeding under the pressure, that furnace that sears his insides. Here on stage it feels natural.

Before they got signed to the record, he was mostly working bartending gigs. Especially at bars where it meant he could get an in to play at.