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ABSTRACT: This creative thesis is a collection of poems that tells the story of three queer women in the late-nineteenth century American Midwest and the various ways they withstood their dangerous position on the margins of society. The book is divided into three sections, one for each woman, Gertrude, Susanna, and Mary. Each section is organized chronologically, so that, through the course of the book, readers see three narrative strains, three distinct versions of the same story, as seen through different eyes. Gertrude and Susanna, who lived as a married couple, with Susanna passing as a man, have the most overlap in their stories. Mary offers a glimpse of what might have been, for those who were not as successful at self-preservation. She ends up imprisoned in an insane asylum, ruled by the voice of a figment, "Johnny," her half-god, half-captor and troubled by her obsession with smashing windows