Dearest Reader,


My name is Margot Dylan, and I'm a pariah.

On the 16th of April, I told my mother that I was gay. She threw the clay mug that I made for her before she found out I was gay, against the floral, peeling wallpaper mess of a wall, in our kitchen. The decaffeinated peppermint green tea left a wonderful aroma that almost cleansed the room of the stench of 'lesbian'.

I met Dylan Dunham a few days after that, and, a few days later, she was the first girl that I ever loved.

Dylan wore a red flannel jacket, and was a butch and sometimes a *****-but I loved her even at her tomboy cruelest.

Dylan smoked a cigarette that smelled like lonerism, and she looked at me like she didn't care. My heart skipped a beat, as cliche as it sounds, whenever she would remove the cigarette from her mouth, exhale, and look at me as smoke traveled up her face. I looked at her and knew that she was everything that I wasn't, and everything that I wanted.

Dylan was Dianne, before and after school. Dylan was Dianne, who wore floral dresses and lipstick and who ditched her butch clothing in her locker before leaving. Dylan was Dianne, who was straight and who thought Tyler Wesson, from church, was cute. Dylan was Dianne, who had a short hair cut because of track and field, because she explained that she ran a faster time with less hair. Dylan was Dianne, who didn't associate with me before or after school because her parents knew that I was gay.

During school hours, the only thing Dylan did keep from Dianne was the lipstick. I was envious of the cigarette because of it's burgundy stains. We would stand in a stall, as she looked across from me, after each drag. She frequently offered her cigarettes, but I refused because I only let love **** me. If she ever brought alcohol, sometimes she'd kiss me. I told her that I loved her and she said, "I know."

The only thing that Dylan kept from me was my heart, before she started to smoke cigarettes in the bathroom with Annie Way.


I wish you the best moments so they can overcome the worst,

Margot Dylan

Please love me, although I have loved before.
Please know that even if
I have worshiped foreign hands,
Marveled at constellation eyes,
Shed tears for other minds and hearts
That tore from me some brutal, awesome love,
Know that nobody has ever made me feel safe
For any measurable length of time.
That not one of them ever stopped in the midst of kissing me to say
"You are just so beautiful."
The way you did, Lover,
2
3
4 times,
Just yesterday.
That all the flowers I ever gave them,
All the gifts and poems and artwork
All those things to show my love
Were tolerated
The way the sun is tolerated on a blistering summer day
Because to escape from it would be too difficult.
Know that I always knew that,
Felt it from them,
Felt shame for it.
And no matter how many photographs I have obsessively taken
Of a face I thought they must have molded the face of the sun after in every ancient carving,
Know that she never wanted me to see her.
And that that
COUNTS.
You looking up at me from those white sheets, Lover,
And never glancing away in embarrassment or apprehension
Counts:
Skin
Counts
To someone who has been held at arm's length for so many years.
Kisses count,
And I count them, every single one soothing the ache of the losses I never asked
To suffer.
It is true, you are not my first love.
But never have you pushed me away.
Never have you shut me down,
Never
Have you been cruel to me.
And all this
I find it counts
More than the awe I felt for those who would abuse me,
More than the fear and loss and devotion and destruction that they demanded
And then blamed me for the consequences of.
Although I have loved before,
Please, please, please love me now,
For that is something you can be
First at,
Lover.

I want crazy, I want cranky
Let me be that old woman who gets mad easily
Let this misogynistic society grow so great it will never be over oh no
Crush me, objectify me
Romanticize the way I dehumanize myself
Discriminate me
I am the stigmas, don't free them from me
I will drink your *** and be happy
Break me, let me crumble
I am a lump of inedible meat
Make a bet on my rushing blood
Don't lose, don't lose oh you will win for sure
Just say it and ***** on my mouth
Don't let me have worth without you
I am lesser than a slave, don't let me stare at your eyes
Play with my broken bones, cut my veins as you please
Make me beg, step on me
I am watermarked and it says your name
And yes this heart beats for you to stop
It can start again if you say so
You are the God, just do everything you want, just do everything you want
I can't not take it
I am inanimate
I am inanimate
I am inanimate

vi.

just how much love
which existence
should i lie about?

I am adding more and more poems
No matter what they are supposed to be called
No matter what numbers would define them
This is a life; not yet mine, but
I am building a home
A place where I can feel safe
A place where I can feel ugly
without being ashamed of it
Here is a life; not yet mine, but
I am still fighting
I am fighting
And I am planning to win.

iv.

warmth
makes me
shiver

You were loved
It was a burden
You thought it would be unfair
To not return the love
So you let the deafening silence
Fill the room where your voice
Should have been

I know
You were afraid to love
And now
So am I
If it is not
You

i am healthy
i am happy
i am full of energy
so strong
like a ship
and the storms that come to me
are just like slight wind
nothing can wreck me
and i believe
i am beautiful
no matter what they say to me
i am the butterfly, i am the phoenix, i am the sky
i am the universe
you all live inside me
i am unique
i am irreplaceable
such a gem i am
so special
i shine bright
my smile is sunshine
my eyes have moonlight
my heart is a home for everyone
my soul is sea tides
my brain hates ignorance
i am witty
and so funny
i am now telling
the joke of the day
not yet finished
all audiences gone
they do not understand
this is the real comedy
really, i really have no sense
of others' sense of humor

You were freer than a free verse
And even sonnets could not keep you.

Tonight we got drunk on papayas,
Sitting on the sidewalk sipping
drinks, careless laughter
exploding from our mouths when
the moon split itself
Down our throats. In the messy
medley of the night I felt you on

my skin, remember:

How I lost myself in the fine lines
Of your lips where you claim
Your flaws fall into.

How I tried to swallow them like
apricots and how - in almost exact reciprocation
Of the same passion -
your eyelid moves which say:
I love you as much as I love God.

You are four light years away
And tonight I got drunk on papayas.

This is not a poem because
Sonnets could not keep you safe
And free verses compete but lose
Their flame, for

Like a landslide you let love slide,
I let love leave then.

they do not know you.
they only know your name,
your face, your skin,
your eyes, your fears,
your cries, your hair,
your smile, your voice,
your dreams, not you.
baby, they do not know you.
no one does; not even you.

curling up into all sweet confusions
that trickle down from
your touch,
we become the sky, as birds fall
from above. i lose
a tactician's leverage throughout
this fog; a descension
if you were the moon,
an aberrance,
if you were a single leaf,
dripping from this
tree coiling up to
the lights hung on
netted strings set under
the darkness of the sky,
where-ever you have been.
where-ever you are.

   so,
   do the stars still shine solely for you,
   the nights you most need them?

perhaps i have
gone blind,
just when i need to see you,
more now than ever.
perhaps i've just
been sleeping
a little
too long, inside this cave.

   does the sky still divide the sea?

but, undoing the buttons on your grip,
you build declensions on foundations
of realisation: with full authorship of
your motions, you know you could
go anywhere, love. you now know
away from i is any road, every treadmark
save this single one.
                             and mine is hardly treacherous,
but you'll still only find me in mountaintops,
so i could barely blame you if the path gets
too narrow, or too long-wound.

   do the clouds still turn images
   in full colour, late afternoon, to
   remind you of shapes i imitate
   in all fractured disappearances?

i've seen retreat from so
many sides now, the addition of
yours could
hardly make a dent. not that i
would not lament a loss like you,
more than anything.

   yet, don't
   worry, never
   worry, i can still stay in motion.

still, if you see fit to
collect all broken pieces of me,
and build up this cottage, or nest, you can keep
your heart here long as
you like, darling.