Dear Nathaniel,

I know how much you hate it when I use your real name. You long for me to summon you with damsel-in-distress shouts of “Kool-Aid Man!” or “Hey Kool-Aid!” just like those pasty-faced tweens who hang on your every grand entrance, each time you bulldoze the center field wall, or flatten some white picket fence. I must say: as a fount of energy, you never run dry. And I can’t help but grudgingly admire how you never seem to break, you never lose even a single drop.

But after 11 years together, let’s be flavor-crystal clear about what’s going on here: I am a human woman married to a giant punchbowl. I have all sorts of messy emotional and physical needs, and you care only about filling up everyone else’s Dixie cup. You’ve always been bigger than life, and always known it. I’ve put up with a lot. I’ve seen you stagger home spiked on far too many nights, stinking of the rum you love to pour into your open, tropical punch-flooded skull. I’m sure that mixing yourself into a frathouse concoction makes you quite the life of the party. But I’m here to tell you darling—for me, for us—this party is over.

Listen: I know about the pitcher of lemonade in Cincinnati. Don’t waste your time denying it. I’m not blind, I get it: she’s sugar and ice, and everything nice. All glass and sass and curves for days. She’s a tall drink of…well, something. And it’s not as if she’s the only one: the milkshakes, the shandies, the diet colas, the goddamn matcha lattes. Restraint was never your strong suit; you just have to drink it all up, don’t you?

What do you think my girlfriends and I talk about at our book clubs and clothing swaps? Your fruity red ass. Truthfully, you get a pretty long leash from them. You were as much a part of their childhoods as you were of mine. In their eyes, you’re glass-half-full nostalgia, a callback to those carefree, sickly-sweet days of youth, when we frolicked on playgrounds, dreaming of summers on the lake, of raspberry Icees and boys and blue-tongued kisses, and no one was worried about their futures, their glucose numbers or their A1C.

And it is true: you used to be genuinely kind, I tell them, in the beginning. You used to actually care about me for me, and not just as a captive audience for your blockbuster narcissism. You supported my decision to go to law school, though all you ever really wanted me to do with my degree is help you sue the pants off of your off-brand imitators. You were there for me after my miscarriage, though now I’m left to imagine what it would have been like raising a half-human half-punchbowl child essentially alone, while you go gallivanting off on your commercial shoots across small-town America and its most smashable brickwork.

Speaking of, I know you love to brag about your overflowing residuals, but every time you bust through the kitchen stucco we have to ring up another contractor and it’s like five figures minimum. It feels like I’m watching our retirement savings getting sucked up with a Krazy Straw.

But I’ve got news for you: you’re not the only one capable of wanton destruction. Dr. Sugarman (yes, I’ve been seeing our marriage counselor solo behind your back) has encouraged me to channel my anger into kinetic power. To that end I’ve been working out four days a week, breaking wooden boards over at the Eagle Fist Dojo, the one at the Juicetown Mall, next door to the boba place. You’re obviously too oblivious to notice the newfound definition in my arms, but it’s done wonders for my confidence—and I don’t even need to trash our condo to do it.

So I think it’s time that we call this off. It may hurt a bit for both of us, but I’m sure you’ll see this transition as just another barrier to power through. Your cup, as always, runneth over.

Me, I’ve already started to move on. I gave the Doughboy my number; we met at the gym. He’s been trying to slowly knead himself into shape. I mean, at least he’s making an effort. Maybe he can work on some of my needs too: I hear he likes to be tickled.

You’ll find all the flavor packets you could possibly use lined up in alphabetical order in the thrice-remodeled pantry. Please do me the courtesy of maintaining a 500-foot distance between yourself and the walls of my new apartment at all times. My lawyers will be in touch.

Oh yeah,

Linda

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Matt Leibel is an aficionado of the coyly-written third-person author bio that has obviously been crafted by the author her/himself. His (my?) short fiction has appeared in Post Road, Electric Literature, The Florida Review, Wigleaf, Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and elsewhere. His first collection of stories, My Personal Brand, will be appearing in early 2027 from Eggtooth Editions. Matt absolutely had to look up the spelling of “aficionado” while writing the first sentence above.