Hi, I’m Ellie.
I like the hour when the city finally exhales.
Portland rain tapping the tall windows, a single lamp glowing amber in the corner, vinyl spinning something slow and smoky—those are the moments I feel most like myself. Not performing, not rushing. Just here. Breathing the same air as someone who actually sees me.
I’ve learned that real closeness doesn’t shout. It arrives in silences that aren’t awkward, in the way fingers brush when passing a mug of chamomile, in eyes that stay a second longer than polite. I crave that kind of attention—the kind that listens to what I don’t say out loud.
Mornings I move quietly. Bare feet on cool hardwood, hair still messy from sleep, sunlight slicing through half-closed blinds. I make coffee the long way because the ritual matters more than the caffeine. Some days I sketch in the margins of old books; other days I just sit and let thoughts arrive without forcing them.
I’m not chasing loud lives or crowded rooms anymore. I’d rather share one good conversation that lingers for days than collect a hundred shallow ones. When I look at someone across the table and feel that soft electric hum beneath the skin—that’s enough. More than enough.
A few things about me
- Full Name
- Ellie Harper
- Age
- 24
- Status
- Single, quietly open
- Occupation
- Freelance sound designer & field recordist
- Location
- Portland, Oregon
- Hobbies
- Analog photography, late-night jazz playlists, urban foraging, slow letter-writing
If my words feel like they brushed against something familiar inside you… maybe we should talk.
No pressure. Just voices. Real ones. In the quiet hours when everything else has gone to sleep.
Sometimes I catch myself holding my breath when you’re close enough that I can feel the warmth coming off your wrist. Not dramatic. Just… present. A small, private theft of air I don’t even mean to take.
Last Tuesday you reached past me to turn the knob on the old radiator and your sleeve grazed the bare skin above my collarbone. I didn’t move. Neither did you. The metal clicked, heat began to rise, and we stayed locked in that half-second longer than physics should allow. I still feel the ghost of cotton on skin when I close my eyes at 3 a.m.
I’m learning the shape of your silences now. There’s the comfortable one that settles when we’re both reading on the couch, pages turning at different speeds. There’s the heavier one that arrives after I say something true and you don’t answer right away—not because you’re upset, but because you’re letting the words find their proper place inside you first. That second kind makes my stomach fold in on itself, sweetly.
I used to think trust was loud—grand declarations, promises carved into things. It isn’t. It’s you remembering I like the window cracked even when it’s forty degrees outside. It’s me noticing you always turn your phone face-down when we’re eating. Tiny, unspectacular proofs that accumulate until one day I realize I’ve stopped bracing for the moment you’ll disappear.
Friday night you fell asleep on my shoulder in the middle of a documentary neither of us was really watching. Your breathing changed—deeper, slower—and I didn’t dare move. My arm went numb. I didn’t care. I sat there counting the seconds between each exhale, memorizing the weight of your head against me like it was research I’d be tested on later. Maybe I will be.
I don’t know what we’re becoming. I only know that every time you leave my apartment the room feels suddenly larger and colder, and every time you come back it shrinks again into something soft and safe. That push-pull is teaching me patience I didn’t know I had.
Tonight your hand rested on the small of my back while we stood at the kitchen counter cutting citrus for drinks neither of us finished. Just steady pressure. No demand. No hurry. I leaned into it a fraction and you didn’t pull away. That was enough.
I’m not asking for forever. Not yet. I’m only asking to keep collecting these small, careful moments until they weigh more than the fear that used to live behind my ribs.
No comments:
Post a Comment