Mni Salimo, Can you believe it’s been 113 days since I last saw you? 113 days since I heard your voice. 113 days of waking up and having to remember, all over again, that you’re not here. How is that even possible, Salimo? How have 113 days passed when it still feels like my mind is waiting for you to come back? I can’t do this anymore. I’m tired. Your Zando is tired. I’m so tired of missing you. I still wait for your Snap. I still check my phone sometimes thinking maybe today there will be a text from you. Maybe you’ll suddenly appear. Maybe this whole thing was some horrible misunderstanding and you’ll say, “I’m back.” And I hate myself a little every time I remember that you’re not going to. There are days I forget you’re gone. For a few seconds, I’m normal. I see something funny and think, I need to tell Salimo this. Something happens and my first instinct is to reach for you. I want to complain to you. I want to tell you everything. I want to hear you laugh. And then it hits me. You’re gone. And it feels like losing you all over again. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with all this love now. Where am I supposed to put it? What do I do with all the things I still want to tell you? Who do I send my random thoughts to? Who do I run to when the world gets cruel? You were my human diary. My person. My heart. My safe place. And now I’m supposed to just keep living? How? How do I live in a world where I can’t call you? Where I can’t hear your voice? Where I can’t fight with you over stupid things and then laugh five minutes later? Who is going to make me laugh when I’m falling apart? Who is going to listen to me when I have too much inside my head? I feel numb, Salimo. Completely numb. My body is here, I’m here, I’m breathing, I’m doing whatever I’m supposed to do—but a part of me is still with you. I hate that the world didn’t stop when you left. People kept laughing. Kept going to work. Kept making plans. Seasons changed. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months. And I’m still here counting. 113 days. I don’t want to be strong about this. I don’t want to “move on.” I don’t want to learn how to be okay with your absence. I just want you back. I want one more conversation. One more stupid argument. One more Snap. One more “Zando.” One more moment where I don’t have to miss you. Please come back, Salimo. Your Zando is still here. And I don’t know how to explain how much it hurts that you aren’t. - @sxrh.3