The Bad-Breakup Book
just the bones
I. Dedication
A. I dedicate this book to you,
1. friends and family members
2. wrenched into the aftermath
3. of yet another of my romantic-relationships’
4. calamities,
5. catastrophes,
6. crap outs,
7. pass outs,
8. cave ins,
9. folds,
10. woes,
11. waterloos,
12. wrecks,
13. smashups,
14. discomfitures,
15. distresses,
16. holy messes,
17. disintegrations,
18. and ruins.
19. Your shoulders dampen with my tears,
20. tire as they support my undoing.
21. Your heads ache after you press cell phones
a. (for much too long)
b. to your ears as I weep.
B. You, my dedicated. My
1. faithful,
2. constant,
3. steadfast,
4. dutiful,
5. devoted,
6. true-blue,
7. altruistic,
8. and not deterred.
C. You, whose lives I disrupt
1. like a wasp dive-bombing
2. your family barbeques.
D. I dedicate this book to you
1. who cannot understand why
2. anyone would not love
3. me forever.
II. Preface
A. I glance over my shoulder
B. at three divorces.
1. Shabby now,
2. they drag from my heels and trail
3. tattered retrospection.
4. Admitting so many failed marriages
5. as I date (at 72, the word
6. works only in italics),
7. my fists clench
8. beneath restaurant tables
a. (my steady breathing
b. well-practiced),
9. as I listen to men confess
10. their own three
a. or four
b. or five marital flops.
D. Nevertheless, I’ve lived
1. alone, unattached, most of my past
2. eighteen years
3. and done just fine,
E. thank you.
F. Still, no wedded relationships,
1. or any relationships, have lasted longer
2. than seventeen years—(husband #2)—
3. a short time in relation to the span
4. of any adulthood.
a. Some people find they feel
b. altogether happy
c. when living on their own.
5. But, I do not.
G. Nights I’m kept awake
1. the cosmos blinks
2. bright outside the bedroom window, my bedside
3. music-shuffle insists
4. “The Summer Knows,”
5. Earl Klugh’s seducing,
6. solo, jazz guitar,
7. and my torment
8. pulsates through my head.
9. Sometimes, I’m sadly clumsy and topple
10. over divots, because,
11. whenever it wants, loneliness decides
12. to tee up, take a few swings.
a. (Increasingly hazardous
b. as osteoporosis plunders
c. my bones.)
H. Damp days insist
1. I spill to someone
a. (to no one)
3. thirsty for my minutiae—Shit!
4. The dog peed inside.
5. Again! And,
6. Can you believe
7. I bought pomegranates?
8. We both know I can’t
9. de-seed them.
I. Empty, I thirst
1. for someone else’s trivia—
2. The car’s breaks
3. still squeak. And, My daughter
4. needs me to repair
5. her TV. Can you believe she
6. thinks I can fix TV’s?
7. Balancing supply and demand
8. somehow stabilizing.
J. Where I love you
1. doesn’t live
2. out loud, silence lays
3. lonely siege.
K. I want to find someone
1. with whom to grow
2. old(er). With whom to share
3. my life.
L. The problem is, at times
M. it has seemed possible.
III. Epigraph
A. “Across the room
B. the 2020 presidential election results
C. blared from the TV. Then
D. his voice shattered
E. her attention.
1. ‘You’re not interested in me anymore?’ she finally asked.
a. ‘You’ve been acting like you love me?
b. And not said a word?
c. And, it’s been happening for weeks?’
2. He nodded. Then he disappeared
3. out the front door. That’s
4. how she remembers
5. it, anyway.
F. She fed him the words.
1. Then he left
2. letting her believe
3. they were his.
G. And so,
1. that’s exactly
2. what she did believe.”
—The Bad-Breakup Book
IV. Table of Contents
A. As it turns out,
B. I was premature
C. believing I had what
D. it takes to write the contents
E. and, therefore,
F. the Table of Contents.
G. How could I
H. clarify,
I. reconcile,
J. unzip,
K. tackle,
L. bring off,
M. cut off,
N. knock off,
O. rule,
L. wrangle,
M. bully,
N. steer,
O. incorporate,
P. dominate,
Q. embody,
R. embrace,
S. elucidate,
T. cope with,
U. and/or crack?
V. To do it justice would unveil
W. the essence,
1. of the making
2. and the breaking of love.
Z. Completion of the contents of chapters
AA. might become possible
1. in a month,
2. Or a year.
3. Or two.
V. Acknowledgements
A. I acknowledge this (partial) book
B. would not have been possible
C. were it not for the child
1. lurking inside my lover’s
2. adult body,
D. my obvious lack
1. of forgiveness
2. for this final flaw,
E. and my inability
1. to forgive
2. his capacity
a. for fooling me.
G. He (must have) eclipsed his disagreement
1. about my (who knows?)
2. with prolonged kisses
3. delivered at my bedside, laced
4. with first-morning coffee
5. since my stomach can’t suffer caffeine,
H. and cloaked
1. his shock
2. of my (will-forever-be-unknown)
3. with his gentle hand behind my head,
a. drawing my mouth
b. to his, letting our tongues and then
c. hands wander,
I. and obscured
1. his regret of my (fill-in-the-blank)
2. with his bare feet
a. seeking mine under covers,
b. cuddling my toes
c. with his until sleep came
d. between us
J. He must have masked
1. his disappointment
2. of my (he’d-never-tell) with what he did say—
a. you’re gorgeous, I can’t get enough
b. of you,
c. your writing is brilliant,
d. we will grow
e. old(er) together.
K. And, his boredom
L. with my (whatever),
1. concealed with some fine fucking
M. I attest to this project
1. (not) prevailing
2. owing to my lover’s desire
3. to share his life (before and) throughout
4. the initial
5. eleven months of the pandemic
6. while discovering, learning,
7. realizing and recognizing, together.
8. While also negotiating,
a. sanitizing, sanitizing, sanitizing,
b. and entertaining (each other)—
i. indoor badminton,
ii. dining-table tennis,
iii. hearts, cribbage,
iv. Streaming (binging) TV— thrillers,
sitcoms, standup, and jazz.
v. Inventing Italian nicknames—
vi. (Alessia Ravioli Geltini).
vii. Buying inflatable kayaks,
viii. kayaking,
ix. fucking,
x. baking bagels (from scratch),
xi. laughing,
xii. jigsawing
xiii. more fucking,
xiv. and lots more laughing.
c. I recognize the (unlikely) completion
d. of this wanna-be book
e. is due to my lover (the bastard), Giovani,
f. walking out during A World-Wide Pandemic,
g. leaving me with no (naked)
h. face-to-face, as well as no physical
i. contact with Every
j. Single Person
k. In The World.N. Were it not for
1. my necessity to be right,
2. my indiscreet, unhappy glances,
3. my depressions,
4. my mania,
5. my anxiety,
6. my constant writing,
7. my conviction that talking
8. is always the cure
9. adding to my necessity for winning debates) 
O. I acknowledge the bones
P. of the Bad-Breakup Book would not exist
1. without my fractured compassion
2. and obvious animosity.
3. Also, my lover’s itty- bitty heart,
4. its pumping a pretense
5. for promise.
VI. Afterword
A. This book came
B. to (not fully) be as the result of
C. the assignment from my teacher (Richard Froude),
D. to use Renee Gladman’s essay,
E. “The Order of Time,” (Journal #110, 2020, e-flux),
F. as inspiration. I was taken by Gladman’s
G. thread where she mentions waiting for afterwords
H. written by authors
I. for their already-published books
J. while also meandering
K. through personal perplexities—
1. how the cosmos embodies
2. the past, the “lockdown mind”
3. and the challenge of helping people find what
4. they’re looking for.
L. Gladman (even) contemplates
1. “…how a lockdown mind
2. would find
3. love.”
4. (My universe lightyears
5. from relating.)
M. And addressing another
1. Black Lives Matter insight—
2. an incalculable change—
3. white people
4. pulling out “crusty books”
5. by black authors
6. to recommend to other
7. white people, the unimaginable
15. dismantling of the Minneapolis police
16. and more black
17. and brown
18. bodies lying dead.
19. She sees the impossibility of reflecting
20. on now.
N. My fragile frame bearing
1. world-wide pandemic,
2. I strained against crusty
3. shame
4. my bones cracking
5. against hard truths within our racism—
6. rancid and systemic.
O. Yet, I sat
1. with my singular
2. suffering.
1. My something
2. particular.
3. Something
4. Renee Gladman would
5. not contemplate
6. in an essay (I don’t
7. think), still,
10. mine (sadly)
11. universal,
12. while acutely
13. (I-felt-in-
14. my-bones),
15. puny.
P. But, I considered my
Q. barefaced tragedy, and,
R. afterward resolved—
1. afterwords
2. are
3. inescapable.
S. I, too, had been living
1. in the aftermath,
2. aftershock,
3. after-effects,
4. residuum,
5. repercussion,
6. backwash,
7. backlash,
8. impact,
9. ramification,
10. residual,
11. hangover,
12. flak,
13. fallout,
14. blow off,
15. consequence
16. can of worms.
T. All things considered
1. (or not), my
2. skeleton holds,
3. and heart
4. breaks
5. and
6. breaks again.
VII. Epilogue
A. And now.
B. Now,
C. I wonder
1. if these pages are too,
2. too absurd?
D. Now
E. I want to know,
1. how long will it take
2. before I find it bearable
3. to write this
4. heartbreak?
F. And now,
G. I can’t stand not knowing
H. if I will grow
I. old,
1. not alone,
2. but old (brittle)
3. without-a-partner.
J. Because I’m now 72
K. which leaves ten years
L. (fifteen with facetious optimism)
M. to share
1. time and space with
2. someone intimately.
N. And now,
1. I will phone
2. my kind-hearted
a. friends
b. and family.1
1 To meet with in person
1. preferably outdoors, or,
2. if a part of my family or
3. close-knit group, and
4. all vaccinated, in someone’s
5. home.
Wedding #1. White dress and veil.
Foreign faces filling a synagogue chapel—
my father’s guests.
Nineteen, neoteric, unseasoned.
Escaping, I sparkle.
Thirty months of memories packed into cardboard boxes,
we still like each other.
(Had we confused liking with loving?)
We hold each other. Our cheeks wet.
his words whirl a mask holds
my happy face in place
can’t feel its slick plastic
as it slinks by
-
- * I wasn’t alone.
- * my man
and I
shared
much in
common. - * My man and
I pursued
fresh fun. - * I laughed.
- * I was loved.
- * I loved.
- * I was left.
Recognizing
The Fucker Giovanni
Positive affirmations (at times, lies) hang around my house.
An imprint. A branding.
Residual memories cling—
Ghosts of reflections.
I grew up and live in Denver, CO and am a 73-year-old, retired public school teacher who began writing at 55. My rhino-thick skin has been an advantage in both pursuits. I write nonfiction to share my truths about living as an old(er) woman, and my work can be found in Iron Horse Literary Review, Broad Street Magazine, Superstition Review, Nashville Review, and others. I published my memoir, Reckless Steps Toward Sanity (University of New Mexico Press), at age 67 and find myself hoping my daughter never writes her own. I can be found at judithsaragelt.com
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