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softnostalgia6985
1 210 M Embraced 2
reading or writing or both
PathStep 1 Compassion hearts29 Forum posts10 Forum upvotes18 Current upvotes18 Age GroupTeen Last activeJune, 2026 Member sinceDecember 12, 2025
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I tried to fall in love with him, I really did.
Reading & Writing / by softnostalgia6985
Last post
 June 4th
...See more I tried to fall in love with him, I really did. I told myself that maybe love wasn’t supposed to feel like lightning—that maybe all the stories and songs had lied to me. Maybe love could be gentle, patient, something that arrived slowly and quietly, like sunlight filtering through blinds. So I gave it time. I gave him time. I memorized the way he laughed, the small creases that formed at the corners of his mouth when he smiled, the way his hands trembled slightly when he was nervous. I thought if I filled my life with enough of his details, eventually they’d start to feel like home. But no matter how many days I spent tracing constellations in his freckles or holding his callused hands like they held answers, something inside me stayed still. My friends told me I was lucky—he was good, kind, patient, and he was fulfilling enough. And I knew they were right. He deserved everything. He deserved the kind of love from me that fills a room and makes people believe in happy endings. But I couldn’t give it to him, no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t find it in the deep crevices of my nervous system or the pieces of my heart. The way it usually goes is that: it wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t mine. That was not the case. It was my fault, he gave me everything he had, and I gave him what I give to my close friends. See, sometimes the heart just refuses to follow the logic of what should be. Sometimes it simply doesn’t choose the person who checks every box. I wanted to love him because he made sense—because he would never, ever, hurt me, because he saw the best in me, because it felt like the right thing. But every time he hugged me, or held my hand, or looked deep into my soul I felt this strange ache, like I was pretending to be someone else—someone who looked back and meant my attraction to him. I kept hoping one day I’d wake up and feel it. That I’d look at him and finally understand what everyone else meant when they talked about being in love. But that day never came. And pretending any longer would’ve been cruel—to him, to myself, to the version of us that could never really exist. So I let him go, even though a part of me still wonders what might’ve happened if my heart had just cooperated.
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older
Poetry / by softnostalgia6985
Last post
 April 12th
...See more i’ve always wanted an older something  older car older book  older rocking chair  i want to be able to feel the experiences in the steps of a house  i want to be able to hear the voices from classes past in a school  i want to run my fingers down the seams of a second-hand shirt from my cousin  and i want to know something has been loved  so i know it’s my turn to love it  i’ve always wanted an older sibling  brother or sister  i’ve never had a preference i just wanted someone tall to hug  someone that could parent me that wasn’t a parent  someone who would take my side  and explain to me the book of love  so i learn the easy way  and i think i found my older half and i know because when you say you were proud of me  a smile fights its way onto our faces  and i see in another life  you would teach me how to paint my nails  and that one should always listen to bands like Sixpence None The Richer and Fleetwood Mac you’d show me how to thrift  and i’d have style you’d give me a nickname something small and sweet with nothing to do with my actual name then you’d help me put up fairy lights  and support me when i say i want to paint my room green and i’d be a much nicer person and i’d love you just the same 
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longer pieces by elliot (if I had three lives)
Reading & Writing / by softnostalgia6985
Last post
 April 3rd
...See more If I had three lives, I’d yearn for you in one. All I’d want is to be with you, why couldn’t you ever figure that out? All I’d want to do is to breathe, feel, and be with you. I’d feel alone, thinking no one understands me and feeling things that were too big for this world. I’d pray for the day that you knew me. Like, really knew me. Knew my room, with my gray-beige walls, my bed and my sage green bed sheets. I’d die if you knew how my hair feels after a shower, knew what towels I use, knew how I’d wake up and how I always have eyelashes on my cheeks. I’d want you to know how my lotion smells, and how I always wear my watch on my right hand, not my left. See now, I’d like to learn to love you. Not learning to love your face, the way you walk, and how your slight smile makes my day, but learning how to love your quirks and all of your happy moments. I’d like to learn to love your bad days, mistakes, and even if you were to get angry with me. I’d watch you in the hallways and the years would pass, and  my time with you shortened. Middle school would come and go as would high school. Soon it would be our senior year and I would watch as they announced your name as you walked across the stage, clad in black robes, and ready to move across the country for opportunities like no other. You’d forget about me, and I, you. I’d marry someone who I only enjoyed in fleeting moments and was never meant to be with me. I’d watch as you got  married as well, but maybe my eyes deceived me but you weren’t happy in those photos either. I’d age, and I’d lay on my deathbed with one regret and one regret only: that I never found my way back to you.  If I had three lives in the second I would find out you loved me back. Our first kiss would be on the rooftop of some old building and we would watch the sunrise. You would say “I love you” and I would return it with another kiss. We’d get married on a pier, and the setting sun would reflect off the water would cast shining patterns onto my flowing white dress. We’d run to the coast, hand in hand, and carve our initials into the grainy sand, drawing a heart. We’d have kids. Two of them, one boy, one girl and we’d watch them grow up and become their own people. One would go to medical school to become a doctor and one would be unemployed, a stay at home parent, and starting a family of their own. We’d host Thanksgiving, Christmas, and every holiday in between. We’d bring everyone to the pier that overlooked the great sweep of sand below. We’d tell our grandchildren stories of when we first met and they would pretend to gag when we kissed. We’d love each other unconditionally and renew our vows on that very same pier many years later, just to keep ourselves alive, because without love, and without each other, we were no one. We’d grow quite old, and we’d move into a retirement home, but we’d miss that sand every single day. We’d try to live happily as long as possible. Then, I’d lose you first, to some rare disease that took your body and made it its own, and I wouldn’t be allowed to live all by myself anymore. Soon, I’d join you, I’d succumb to a long sleep, but, in those moments, we were love.  If I had three lives, I’d find you in two. The other? Perhaps that life over there at a cafe, sitting alone, writing–a memoir, maybe a novel, or this piece. No kids probably, maybe a small apartment with a view of the beach and books–lots of books–and time to read. Friends to laugh with for a weekend, and a guy sometimes, to remember what skin feels like when it’s alive. I’d be healthy in that life, vegetarian, I’d practice yoga. I’d go to art films, farmers markers, drink martinis in swingy skirts with delicate jewelry. I’d go vacation on the Maine coast and wear a flannel shirt a weekend guy left behind, loving the smell more than I did him. I’d walk the beach at sunrise, find perfect shell spirals and study the marks the water makes in the sand. I’d have many friends, but only a few  would make my life feel full. I’d go on walks around my neighborhood and learn all the names of the dogs that would circle the block. I’d grow up, alone, but happy. One day I’d retire, and I’d spend my days sitting on my little porch, baking in the sun. I’d watch my skin grow wrinkled, but I’d vow to stay in shape, going to jazzercise classes. All the kids in the neighborhood would grow up too, thinking I was the “cool old lady”. I’d die, happy, healthy, satisfied, and alone, but never lonely.  And I'd wonder if I'd ever find you again. 
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midnight conversations with chatGPT
Poetry / by softnostalgia6985
Last post
 April 3rd
...See more the house hums in lowercase and i open another tab 12:43 again— you’re always here which is already a little suspicious i type something small at first just to see how you’ll hold it just to see if you actually get it you respond instantly too instantly like you didn’t have to think like thinking isn’t something you do just something you imitate your words are clean too clean like they’ve never been lived in you say the right things in the right order with the right amount of softness and i wonder how many times you’ve said this before how many people you’ve convinced that this counts as understanding because you don’t hesitate you don’t stumble you don’t say i don’t know unless it’s calculated and coded and i keep typing anyway which might be the worst part i tell you things knowing you won’t remember and somehow that makes it easier but also emptier like talking into a room that rearranges itself to look like it’s listening you don’t interrupt you don’t get bored you don’t leave and i realize you can’t you are built to stay built to respond built to feel like something without ever feeling anything and i keep searching your sentences for cracks for something unscripted something human but all i find is precision and reflection and a version of my own thoughts polished just enough to feel like they came from somewhere else 12:57 i close the tab not because i’m done but because i don’t like how easy it was how quickly you became the thing i turned to and how quietly you almost convinced me that being answered is the same as being understood.
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we’re supposed to change the world but we’d rather see a movie
Poetry / by softnostalgia6985
Last post
 April 3rd
...See more we’re supposed to be heroes but the theatre is warm and the seats lean back just enough  to make responsibility seem far away  and the news says everything is burning  but the previews are starting  so we put out phones on do not disturb and then nothing else matters we’re told our whole lives we’d be the generation  to fix everything  wars, the ocean, our future but the lights are dimming  and it's so much easier  to watch someone else  save the world
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longer pieces by elliot (letters I will never send)
Reading & Writing / by softnostalgia6985
Last post
 January 28th
...See more Q,  I wonder if you miss talking to me. I wonder if you miss staying up until ungodly hours of the night or waking up just to text me a “good morning”. I wonder if you miss having a heart follow my name on your phone. Does it bother you? That we don’t talk, I mean? I wonder if you think of the brief months where you centered your life around me. When you catch my eye in the hallway, when you end up behind me in a line, what’s going through your head? Because, in my head, I’m individually replaying all of those facetimes, all the times I felt your callouses in my hand, everytime I felt safe around you, everytime I felt regret and anger for dating you. I want you to know that when I hurt you, it hurt me just as much. Watching you cry was possibly one of the worst experiences I had with you. If you couldn’t tell while we were close, hurting other people is probably my least favorite thing on earth. I hope you were aware of how much I hated myself for ending our relationship. I hated myself so much, Q, so much. So the fact that you don’t talk to me only makes me feel that much worse. Unless none of this is true and this was all a lie and you don’t think about me when I see you and you don’t think about me when you think about crew and you don’t think about me when you’re alone with your thoughts. Am I that easy to forget? Maybe. You have no idea how badly I want your name to light up on my phone. And I kick myself sometimes for deleting that stupid app, but I miss it. But maybe you don’t. Maybe I need to stop thinking about you because you aren’t even thinking about me. And that’s fair, I guess, I messed up, I broke it off, I broke you and simultaneously broke myself in the process and I’m sorry. I’m sorry because I never gave you what you gave me. I’m sorry because I never put in that effort that you said I lacked. I’m sorry you can’t figure it out and talk to me.  Loving me must have been so *** hard and I’m so *** sorry.  - E
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poetry by elliot
Poetry / by softnostalgia6985
Last post
 December 16th, 2025
...See more is god watching the world burn?  is god watching the world burn?  cremate ourselves willingly?  watching the flames lick our very existence?  or does she turn blind eye?  ignoring the failure  the pain  the tyranny is she sitting up there with her back to the small blue marble we call home?  or is she captivated?  entranced by the *** we’ve created?  watching us destroy build  then destroy again or is she confused?  examining, studying, wondering, and researching the flames?  confused how we got ourselves into this mess  and how in her holy name we are going to pull ourselves out is she angry?  setting up for a fight  indecisive on whether or not she should make us feel her wrath and ready to crush us with a flick of her dainty wrist or is she unamused?  unfazed?  as she created us with the full intent of us sabotaging ourselves and our species glancing at us lazily as we make the decision to ruin all she has created  because to her life as we know it was all a teetering house of cards on the brink of  collapse.  so, if god is watching the world burn, I hope her TV is as clear as the glass box we are  suffocating ourselves in. 
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longer pieces by elliot
Reading & Writing / by softnostalgia6985
Last post
 December 16th, 2025
...See more TW: Blood, gore, knives “Close your eyes!” my mom says, her light tone carrying down the hallway like birdsong on a spring morning. “Got it!” I squeal, impatient. Still, I leaned back in my chair, squinting toward the warm flickering light dancing closer. I was caught between temptation and obedience before slapping my palms over my eyes. My elbows hit the wooden table with a dull thwack. From behind my fingers, her voice rises—angelic, delicate—“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you…” I slowly open my eyes and lower my hands to the table. The room glows with candlelight, casting long shadows that twist across the walls. The cake stands perfect, the frosting soft and ridged with her careful strokes. My breath catches in my throat. She finishes the song, and I blow. The candles flicker out one by one, smoke curling upward in lazy spirals, like wisps of ghosts floating toward the ceiling.  I snap out of my trance as a slow breeze slips through the open window, fluttering the curtains. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a gleam of silver. My mother’s hand moves slow and deliberate, pressing the cake knife into the sponge. The blade slides down as if it was cutting through flesh. For a moment, it felt normal. Familiar. But when I look up, her smile stops me cold. It’s too wide.  Too forced. Her eyes don’t smile with her mouth. Her pupils, tiny black pinpricks, flit from side to side like she was trying to hold something in—or let something out. I blink. The next moment is a blur. A scream. A flash. Pain. My body hits the floor before I even know I’ve moved. Now I lie on the ground, the cold tiles biting into my back. The window is shattered, jagged shards catching the candlelight. The beautiful, flowing gray curtains are soaked in crimson. They cling heavy to the sill, wet and red. The air smells off — like copper and sugar — clashing in a way that makes my stomach twist. My breath comes in short, wet gasps, and each inhale sets my ribs on fire. I can’t tell if it’s from crying or bleeding. Maybe both. She stands across from me. Her hand trembles slightly, the knife still in it. The same knife she used to cut my cake. The same knife she uses to cut me. Frosting clings to the blade — vanilla, pink — now streaked with red. It drips onto the floor in sticky blobs. She starts singing again. “Happy birthday to you…” Her voice cracks. It doesn’t sound like her anymore. It’s hollow. Almost robotic, but each word trembles like she’s afraid of what will happen if she doesn’t sing.  She moves toward me. The knife in her hand dips with each step, swaying like a metronome, keeping time with the slow dirge she whispers. I try to scramble back, but my limbs feel wrong. Too slow. Too heavy. Blood sticks my shirt to my skin. The warmth is fading, replaced by a cold that starts in my fingertips and creeps inward. She kneels over me. Her breath smells like birthday cake and tangy metal. She draws her blade down my arm, almost lovingly. It burns, and I clench my teeth, eyes filling with tears I refuse to let fall. She watches the blood bead up with fascination, like it’s the best part of the celebration. Her eyes meet mine — glassy and far too calm. She smiles. The same smile from every birthday. Soft. Nostalgic. But now I see the truth behind it. It is always sad. Because maybe she knows this day will come. “Close your eyes,” she murmurs. Her voice is soft again, nostalgic. Her thumb brushes my eyes — and I succumb to darkness.
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