meaningless

scratches

stronger than you

i’m not stronger than you

dancing in the kitchen alone

with a knife i forget isn’t

a microphone i’m

singing to my minced onions

through stinging tears

except it’s not singing

i am trying to emulate a scratch

godayumn what the fu-uck

i tell my tomatoes

sounds that remind me

of

i want to be someone’s static

bass drop heart you know

nonsensical utterances

how she speaks to me, through me

when i know every sound is feedback

desperate ooze and goo

ay aya y ayayaya ayaya

aya ayayyayayyayayayayayayay

yay yyyy yyy yyyyy AYYYY AYYyyyyy YAY AY AY AYA AY AY AY AY AY AYYA YAYYAYY

mind mush, you and me

except it’s just me, even better

hit that G

my eyes seal into upturned lips

slats of skin hoarding my joy

there’s a pandemic, meaning i can’t just

grind up against girl hips us shedding each other’s

moonlight at shimmering, thumping

ballroom venues and get sent home 

for being too rowdy

because i’m already home grinding

against thin air, spilling my drinks

a greasy blade i wave to the world

because i am so happy and relieved that

my authentic self is a fucking giddy child

and that’s 100 gecs

gec, i simply must tell you

i have a ginormous fucking smile 

plotting constellations across

my girlish face

gec like homily, like music right

because we’re listening and by ‘we’

i mean you and me, yeah you

i put his name in my contacts

xoxoxoxoxo

i never fucking touch him, grody

but i fuck him subtle because

submissiveness is my dominance is

my superpower 

i love you and i’ll do it all again

music so loud you think the

car sounds are real wrapped up inside the 

living room with you and the walls

what we call ‘hotboxing’

we graduate from minivans to

studio apartments before you know it

like, let’s hotbox the bedroom

let’s fuck in bright lights and smoke

it’s always you

my therapist doesn’t like you, she says UGHHHH

when i talk about her and i’m like lol

u get it right (again)

i dream of girls who are so sexually

intuitively so vibrantly so alive

so not you at all

i don’t believe in resurrection

i like a good scratch

i wish i knew a piss baby in high school

i always knew i’m better off alone

mouth-hand-mouth

insecurities expressed in a joyful ballad

of gecs

i grind on my best friend in another venue

back then platonically i’m not sure

she spills her mixed drink all over my glitter

i kiss her i get in trouble for wanting too much

i get in trouble for stealing someone from someone i don’t know

and all i did was dance to gec

it’s difficult not imagining god watching me

and that’s judgement before letting go

before acquiescing to the ecstasy of gecs

i am no longer afraid of anything 

i cannot tell you what it means gec

like how many friends/lovers can you fit in a bathroom stall

as a beautiful angel voice plays overhead

and the bathroom is flooded in purple light

with graffiti in sharpie and batting eyelashes

an angsty scent floods the vents

makes you want to text him at least say hey

and hey turns to i never stopped loving you

she’s not on your level

she has a hemingway tattoo and she’s never read hemingway

you were sinking in a pool in texas for whom

the bell tolls, the stinking american south your favorite

and a thousand collapsed bridges and the sensual

love of ‘women’ and i know and how can only

imagine

customers at the restaurant where you work will go all

‘rave babe’ and ‘candy’ at you and you go huh, yeah

i guess that’s a little part of me, congratulations

i want to ask them, do you know the gec?

i like the small sounds the gec

and the repetition of gecgecgecgec gec-c-c-c-c-c

how it all breaks down like it’s decaying

a reminder, you don’t have to fear the world


death will be just a warm embrace

i dance on a velvet couch 

cushions swallow me like quicksand

until it’s 7:45 in the morning

and we’re jerking/flailing to a gec-like god

everyone steers their pupils in the wrong direction

huge and fishlike, mesmerized after so many gecs

i want a reason to show you my pretty face

i wait for notifications

i don’t double text unless i have to, really you should see me

in my element, i am so wonderful

in my element, i am indistinguishable from

the strobe lights intermingled with one hundred gecs

raining down on me

i never say what i need & that’s cuz

i don’t need you now that i have gec




megan finkel (she/her) is a queer writer living in new york city. she is either published or forthcoming in CP Quarterly, Neuro Logical, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Crow & Cross Keys. she would love it if you found her on Twitter @megfinkel.