I dumped my mediocre fiance two months ago; I’m clacking mean things about him onto a 1963 Smith Corona Empire. I’m 4,000 miles from home, beachside in Greece, shivering from some virus; I have a typewriter in my lap, God knows why. I came to the island where they filmed Mamma Mia! and I’m laying under a rickety cabana, utterly engrossed in my man-hating era, unbothered (very bothered), moisturized, in my lane, thriving.
“Honey, Honey” – Amanda Seyfried, Ashley Lilley & Rachel McDowall – 3:08
Bright, jangly, scandalous. As scandalous as my ex not knowing what a TERF was after I’d been out as trans for 8 years–but who’s salty? Pfft, not me. I’m as unburdened as Sophie frolicking through that seaside villa. C’mon, Imaginary Other Half of This Conversation–let’s eat some local brined sheep cheese and kvetch. 8/10
“Money, Money, Money” – Meryl Streep, Julie Walters & Christine Baranski – 3:06
A sweat-drenched Meryl Streep (awooga) laments capitalism. Why would I identify with a sexy older woman running a hotel in a decrepit Grecian villa? And yet, I do. I bought my intercontinental plane tickets for $650 after having a mental breakdown at 3am. Even in the midst of a meltdown, I don’t move without a coupon! My ex still owes me $2,000. Capitalism comes for us all, and I came here for Meryl Streep. 10/10.
“Mamma Mia” – Meryl Streep – 3:34
A song full of bad ideas. I’m full of bad ideas–I’m nursing a 101 degree fever by the Aegean (the typeslugs are heavy, my fingers clammy) and yet I ordered a strawberry daiquiri. Kids, don’t date a 27 year old man when you’re 19, and don’t stay for 13 years. If you’re gonna make a bad decision, make the rom-com kind of bad decision: climb onto the goat-house roof like Donna and go crashing in on your three sexy exes. 12/10.
“Dancing Queen” – Meryl Streep, Julie Walters & Christine Baranski – 4:04
Julie Walters, my hero in pseudo-Elvis drag, sings huskily into a vacuum attachment. A simulacrum of a man. Am I a hypocrite if I say I miss my ex? Well, not him exactly, but the wild days. When I was young, one time we got high on LSD in a cliffside hotspring and watched the full moon set over the Pacific. Donna’s friends sing her back to her dancing queen disco days. Maybe Skopelos will sing me back to a time when I had everything, and nothing, to lose. 11/10.
“Our Last Summer” – Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgård, Amanda Seyfried, and Meryl Streep – 2:57
Heart-stirring even if Pierce Brosnan’s vocals are flaccid. As I sit here angrily key-pounding (the “E” is stuck) I type, fuck that guy. I do not miss flinching away from him in the dark. I do not miss his unsolicited dry-humping. Our last summer was July 2024; I dumped him seven days before our thirteenth anniversary. I’m sorry Pierce, but you can’t sing for beans. Stellan, you are marginally less horrible. 2/10.
“Lay All Your Love on Me” – Dominic Cooper & Amanda Seyfried – 4:29
An anthem of CompHet and toxic monogamy, with a jaunty tune! Why does a parade of men in snorkels kidnap the groom?? Who can say. I adjust the typewriter ribbon with my thumb, leaving a smudge of ink on my ex’s name. Years ago, he asked if we could be poly. He immediately slept with one of his students, without a condom, after giving her MDMA. Monogamy, polyamory–there are many ways to do them wrong. 7/10.
“Super Trouper” – Meryl Streep, Julie Walters & Christine Baranski – 3:53
Full 80’s glam and those backup harmonies? They stomp platform heels on a light-up floor and Meryl Streep works those frilly sleeves. This song was filmed in Hollywood, not here on Mamma Mia island where my typewriter tick-tick-ticks. I cannot dance where they danced. I can hardly stand where I stand (well, lay). The sun dips below the edge of the cabana. The Aegean ripples. There is always some miraculous elsewhere I am trying to escape to. 9/10.
“Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” – Amanda Seyfried, Ashley Lilley & Rachel McDowall – 3:51
The silver foxes are lovingly hog-tied by a gang of horny women; a wild secret is revealed. One of my ABBA faves–but here, mostly procedural. Procedurally, I closed my eyes through our sex life in the later years. Because of stony smiles and angry cupboard-slamming. I pulled away–he bridged the distance with his penis. I don’t like men anymore; at least, not right now. The front desk guy at my hotel has Nazi neck tattoos, and flirted aggressively. I attract some real winners, huh? 4/10.
“The Name of the Game” – Amanda Seyfried – 4:55
A soap-operatic incantation: man, just tell it like it is. Sophie’s Shakespearean cry against a cliffside, her smash of wave on rock. Here, a seagull screams and steals someone’s french fry. I sweat the sweat of illness. I would rather shiver on Skopelos than in my new studio apartment, gasping in the aftermath. He was never going to leave me and he was never going to change; Filipino Catholics don’t believe in divorce; they believe in the sunk cost fallacy. I broke his heart in the front seat of his busted-ass Honda CRV and typewrite poems about it in Greece. If I move fast enough, grief can’t catch me. 8/10.
“Voulez-Vous” – Full Cast – 4:35
A hoard of masked men descends and chaotic dancing ensues. With a cool French catchphrase! Language can ignite. I learned Tagalog to connect with his family, at saka hindi natuto siya tungkol sa mga panghalip ko. It took him four years to use my pronouns. I am slick with viral misery; Sophie collapses at the end of this song; I sip my ill-advised daiquiri. I adjust the typewriter–the sheen of sweat has suctioned it to my legs. The whole thing is a catastrophic romp. 9/10.
“SOS” – Pierce Brosnan & Meryl Streep – 3:19
I love this song. I hate Pierce Brosnan’s voice. Then he shuts up and goes to hang jars on a bougainvillea tree. I stood under a bougainvillea tree on Skopelos, still sending up smoke signals. Then I smothered the fire and walked down to this beach. I lit the beacons years ago–my ex just refused to look at them. Meryl and the backup vocals from the kitchen staff carry this one to the finish line. 6/10.
“Does Your Mother Know” – Christine Baranski & Philip Michael – 3:01
Baranski, a goddess, conducts a flash mob of studs: she puts a young buck in a towel diaper. How the hell does her leg bend that far back? My mother never knew the details. The $50,000 he owed the IRS or the years he didn’t file his taxes. His man-baby fit in the pizza joint. The years of party drugs pressed into my hands, Come on, it’ll be fun. My mother does, however, know I am here in the land of locally-sourced sheep cheese and pebble beaches.. 11/10.
“Slipping Through My Fingers” – Meryl Streep & Amanda Seyfried – 3:50
WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME CRY SO MUCH, MERYL? You tenderly arrange Sophie’s hair and I wonder if my mother will ever help me get ready for my own wedding. I grieve for the white, fairy-lit affair I may never throw. But the bigger feeling is Thank God I Did Not Marry That Man. 10/10
“The Winner Takes It All” – Meryl Streep – 4:57
A bitter, terrible trophy made of busted teeth. Did anyone win? Didn’t feel like it. It was one hell of a sinking ship: six months of useless couple’s therapy he kept missing. I ended it all, and did not explain. For six months I was like Meryl, singing into Pierce Brosnan’s stoic, unmoving face. But now, watching the day dip low into the sun-drenched Aegean–I’m starting to think that maybe I won, after all. 9/10
“When All Is Said and Done” – Pierce Brosnan & Meryl Streep – 3:17
Dear Pierce: why oh why do they let you sing. Dear Ex: why oh why do you occupy so much of my brain. Pierce, not even Meryl’s harmonies can save this fetid sonata. Ex, just because I think of you doesn’t mean I want you back. I press these words into the typewriter like a magic spell–a banishing spell. -4/10
“Take a Chance on Me” – Julie Walters, Stellan Skarsgård, Colin Firth, Philip Michael & Christine Baranski – 4:01
Except the me I’m taking a chance on is ME, which is why I hauled this typewriter to the beach in Greece. I am as jangly and desperate as Christine Baranski crawling on the roofline as she fervently reaches. Because hot damn she deserves it. I have my own personal crowd of drunk wedding guests cheering me on. The sun hits the horizon; there’s still some golden hour left; I’m almost ready. 15/10
“I Have a Dream” – Amanda Seyfried – 4:22
Wow, abandoning your entire dream and self-concept to make one wild pivot that’ll change the rest of your life? Amanda Seyfried, I have absolutely NO idea what that’s like (snark). She sets out on a rowboat into the moon-dappled water; here, the sun starts to sink below the same sea. The typewriter dings the completion of its last lines; it is time to begin. 10/10
Kay “Kro” Kroger, MA&MFA (@kroetry) is a full-time on-demand typewriter poet. They won the London Writers’ Salon Writing Contest, the Peatland Poetry Competition, and were shortlisted for Uncharted Magazine’s 2025 Novel Excerpt Prize. Their poetry, essays, and creative nonfiction have appeared in the Bards Against Hunger anthology, Outpatient Press, The Prairie Light Review, The Thomasonian, Crook & Folly, Writer’s Hour Magazine, and more. They are self-proclaimed poet laureates of the Pacific Garbage Patch.
Image: “Our Last Summer” by Alex J. Tunney
