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The Archive of Absence: A relationship with no transcript
1,019 messages were discarded when I pressed delete. 1,019 messages were what iMessage was referring to when it prompted "This conversation will be deleted from all your devices." 1,019 messages were sent back and forth over a period of four months. A relationship's strength can't and shouldn't be measured by characters on a little screen, but when you question if what you cared for was even real, you gather up every little artifact, hoping those little slivers of paper don't get lost on the way to your confetti jar. The delete button is easy. It's the aftermath that's harder, when I wonder if erasing the evidence erases the experience itself. Not that there was much evidence of a relationship to begin with; in a courtroom there would be reasonable doubt.








