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Dyke - A poem

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By Louise Tripp


Dyke is not something they called me

on the playground in my pink knee-highs,

not what would have occurred to them -

my tormenters, who couldn't explain

how I was different, just that I was.

Even in Junior High, I blushed

in the locker rooms and shut myself

into a stall, worried my secret

would spill out somewhere in that cold,

metal room. But they made fun

of other things, did not know

the thoughts that kept me awake nights.

In high school, when boys pushed me

against lockers and bruised

my breasts, twisting them before

taking off down the hall in an eruption

of laughter - even then

they did not call me "dyke."

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