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Bathtub Divorce-Tears Gin

Matthew Jakubowski

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I’m on my ass naked in three inches of bathwater in my divorce apartment. Because life has jokes, on top of the divorce that spring I broke my foot dancing this summer. It’s slung over the side of the tub in a huge fiberglass lump.

I slip and curse like a broken lobster, washcloth in one claw, plastic cup for rinsing in the other. I feel ridiculous and sad. I know I won’t get as clean as usual, gonna need to rely on cologne and lotion. I start to cry, try to stop, then stop trying. You’re just fifty with a busted foot. Soon you’ll be fifty-one with more scars. You’ve got working plumbing. Hot water. Soap. You even had health insurance when you broke your foot.

My tears don’t taste too bad with the glass of gin sitting next to my kid’s watermelon
shampoo. I eye the bottle angrily through sobs, then I’m drizzling neon goo on my chest, going full foamy-pink lobster. But the fake watermelon smell is gag-awful and as my eyes start to water I’m laughing as I’m crying. I laugh loud, coughing and cackling until I’m on the other side of crying, sipping tears all shapes and sizes and vintages from deep within. I still don’t know which taste better, the tears from crying or from laughing. I’ll need to work on my blend, I guess, find the right balance as time goes on.

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Matthew Jakubowski is a multi-genre writer based in West Philadelphia. His stories appear in Scaffold Lit, Gone Lawn, Variant Lit, JAKE, Milk Candy Review, and Best Microfiction 2024. He is online at mattjakubowski.com.

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