DAY 18 OF OC-TOBER: Jamie Bayātī

I’ve lost so many people I loved, or never got to love, and I worry that… I will continue to lose more of them.
My mother and father, I never got to meet them. They’re gone.
Antonio, my first crush, someone I thought – I thought maybe, I could really be with, was killed.
My grandmother, who raised me, died from an illness she has been fighting all these years just to support me.
They’re all gone. My birth family. My first chance at love. Gone.

And now, with Mel, my adopted mother, I worry so much. I worry that she, too, will pass on so unexpectedly.
If not her then… Merci, a sibling to me, they could also die as well. Pip, my best friend, what if…?
Or, if I found love again, to actually start a future with him, will he be taken away too? Or will he just abandoned me?

I don’t… want to be abandoned. I don’t want to lose anyone again. I hate being alone. I need someone. I need someone here, with me.

• Jamie Bayātī the Sand Cat
• Artwork
-- Belongs to Radical-Alex