re: see above

dear lurker, you sent this poem, not knowing if it would come back to you with a red cross drawn across the contact details, dripping 'not known at this address'. not knowing if it would end up being the last letter sent to a mailbox about to be sealed by rust and claimed by weeds. not knowing if it would gather dust in a cyberspace drawer until the world ends with a whimper, never seen by me, never comprehended.

your words made a world of difference to my night.

lurker, I'm thankful for having been someone to you. I'm thankful for having been your 1:30 am thoughts. I'm thankful you found bits of joy in my poetry, and I'm thankful there was an interjunction in our timelines where our lives came closer to each other despite the distance. not only does this blog document a couple of years in my life but it also archives our correspondence, the 'dear lurker' hashtag being a little monument to us. that must be worth something.

this post might be a similar unsure yowl into the void as your message, but whatever its outcome, I find beauty in knowing there's someone out there in a foreign country who has seen parts of me invisible to passers-by. if you're interested in staying in touch, you could still dm me and we could keep sporadically sharing our thoughts, art, words on e.g. instagram or discord. or if that feels like too much, perhaps you could send me one last anonymous ask with your first name on it, something concrete to remember you by — I'll keep checking my inbox for a while, just in case. it did take me a month to see your poem after all.

if not, maybe we'll meet in Edinburgh.

stay alive.

most blogs probably fade into oblivion without a clearcut end. the end of ikhorveined, however, is this.