TO THE EDITOR:
Living with random roommates at UNC, I’ve filled journals describing my many living spaces. None of the entries though, are as curious as this year’s.
There exists a thick yet painfully invisible wall between my roommate and I.
Sometimes, I forget it’s there and run into it, my chest and nose feeling the weight of words that bounce back to my face.
Greetings, casual inquiries and compliments crash and lie on the floor like doves fallen prey to elusive glass.
In Lemony Snicket’s famous series he wrote, “It‘s almost as if happiness is an acquired taste, like coconut cordial or ceviche, to which you can eventually become accustomed, but despair is something surprising each time you encounter it.”
To be clear, the dynamic holds little ability to incite despair.
But considering how the political climate continues to unearth the ugliness within many racialized quotidien relationships across the country, I find myself tired from suppressing the numbness birthed from the sadness.
Looking through it, I imagine if the closest she’s been to brown eyes and kinky hair is from behind her phone, ogling crass text on top of frivolously racist internet memes.
