🍬 "Hi, stranger."

Lost & Found: 2

Hi, readers!

From the looks of the internet, a lot of us are reaching out to people we don't usually talk with: estranged family, exes, dead-end crushes, old friends. Maybe you've sent thinly veiled "just checking in" texts of your own. Or maybe you've considered it but couldn't pull the trigger. Some other force proved stronger — or healthier, or more frightening — than your impulse to connect.

You probably won't find many articles about texts gone unsent, but writer Alicia Abbaspour gives these moments space to breathe in her poem Drafts, which is comprised of message fragments from her Notes app. (We know she's not the only one who pre-writes texts before pasting them into iMessage.) She ended up sending some of them, she says. Others she kept to herself.

On the page, though, we don't know which of Abbaspour's texts saw the light of day. Each is equally vital. As a result, the fragments become less about the act of transmission and more about an attempt to articulate emotion. There's clarity in putting a feeling into words, and there's value in understanding your own experience no matter who hears about it.

It's true that when words go unsaid, connections run the risk of evaporating. In the world of the poem, though, it's just as important to correspond with the self.

As a reminder, Tart will be accepting newsletter submissions on the theme Lost & Found until tomorrow, May 22. You're not too late: Send them over to tartmgzn@gmail.com!

---

Drafts

By Alicia Abbaspour

About the Artist

Alicia Abbaspour is a reader first and then a writer, currently quarantined in the cornfields of the Midwest. Find her on meditationsinapandemic.com or on Twitter @raubpartygirl.

✨LAST SLICE✨

A baby hippo was born and she is chonk. Congrats to the mom, Mabel!