This Is How You Lose Me

Abstract

I liked the intimate setting of the class at first. The silence before the professor walked in. The cramped room. It always smelled like citrus cleaning products. Some hair gel mixed in there, too. There was peanut butter stuck on the roof of my mouth — from my sandwich at lunch — when he walked in that day, throwing a stack of Junot Díaz’s short story, “Alma,” onto the center of the shared table. I liked Junot Díaz’s writing. Loved it, actually. The way he captures pain and molds stories by weaving together the language of diary entries and love letters and suicide notes. The way he uses magic and grit and blood. Darkness and love simultaneously. His work is tragically beautiful. At least, that’s what I think. [excerpt