\u2014Like the laundry: I really couldn\u2019t get a grip on that last load. I had decided to dump everything in all at once (there was so much and I had so little time), so in went EJ\u2019s basketball uniforms and my de-elasticized bras and Dana\u2019s period panties and Elijah\u2019s boxer briefs. The washer cycled while I checked things off my to-do list for an hour (emails, bills, defrosting meat), but when I returned to take everything out, I found myself pulling and pulling\u2014I mean seriously going at it with the machine\u2014for ages. I was nearly diving in at one point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The clothes hadn\u2019t fully spun dry, so I was soaked and cold, but I stood there, yanking<\/em>, and finding more than I\u2019d actually put in. Things I thought I\u2019d lost forever, like my favorite socks to wear to bed and a thong bodysuit I hated that pinched the rind of skin between my ass cheeks. I found a shirt my dad used to wear while working on his car and a funeral shroud the color of sandalwood that was rough and sopping. I had no idea whose it was and didn\u2019t want to know yet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After two more hours of this, the very last items I tugged free were the clothes I had been wearing at the start. I looked down at myself, shivering, to realize I had nothing on but my house shoes and a satin bonnet. The dryer was running and I could hear the garbage men pulling away from the curb. The reek of spoiled castoffs filtered in through the vent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Upstairs, the kids argued over who would toast their Pop-Tarts first, until I remembered that I had no house and no kids and no husband\u2014only a two-year lease that was set to expire on my birthday and an upcoming date with Elijah I\u2019d been ambivalent about for weeks. He wanted to surprise me, but I don\u2019t like not knowing what to wear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ________<\/p>\n\n\n\n Judith Osil\u00e9 Ohikuare<\/a> (she\/her) is a poet, fiction writer, and former journalist from Flatbush, Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net 2023, published in<\/em> CHEAP POP, HAD, and <\/em>Variant Literature, and anthologized in<\/em> Best Microfiction 2023<\/a>. Judith is a 2023 Fellow at In Surreal Life and the Director of Special Programming & Communications at NY Writers Coalition.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"