Do you remember, the first time you said my name you added ‘ዬ’ and it annoyed me. I told you, you shouldn’t use ‘ዬ’ for strangers. You said, ‘You don’t feel like a stranger, you feel like home, my home, whom I have known all my life.’
Have I told you why I don’t like ‘ዬ’?
Because not only do I have attachment issues, I fear abandonment. I believe that if you call my name with a ‘ዬ’ you should stay. Forever.
And I think I liked your use of ‘ዬ’ after our first kiss. Do you remember our first kiss? Do you remember me telling you to keep using ‘ዬ’ at the end of my name?
I remember our kiss didn’t last forever and it felt incomplete. But when our lips parted and I saw your face, I knew you had butterflies too. Your eyes were bigger, or so I thought. You had that smile on your face, that smile that gave me a reason for granting you the right to add ‘ዬ’ to my name forever. I also remember that you traced my face with your fingers, and looked at me with eyes filled with promises and hope.
And when you called me by adding ‘ዬ’ at my name, it made me shiver. Then you said, ‘I think I’m falling in love with you’. It was sudden and too fast but sounded real, after all, everything you said sounded real.
Do you remember what I said next? I said…
‘I’m going to break your heart. You know that song that goes like ‘ከእንግዲህስ ወዲያ እኔ ሰው አልወድም በበረደው ልቤ እሳት አላነድም’? That’s me. I won’t fall in love with you. Run.’
Of course, you didn’t run.
You said that you would rather I break your heart than you mine. You gripped my hand so tight and told me you would never let go of me.
Thinking about it now, I don’t know if I should be surprised when I knew that you were a lost soul searching for meaning in me. And I was sitting right there arguing with myself whether to let you add ‘ዬ’ to my name when all along I have been losing my soul and meaning to you.
In the end, you were the one who broke my heart and I was the one who was back to square one still hating ‘ዬ’ but this time as a lost soul finding no meaning in life.