I’m Milo Dixon, a Chicago-based writer and poet.
Some people become more interesting as you learn more about them. I am not one of those people; I get less interesting, so I go out of my way to keep most people at a distance.
I write a lot about the perilous journey of being a teeny little spec of dust born into a fucked up life in a fucked up world that I did not choose to be a part of but somehow persist through.
The best part about a nearly lifelong, debilitating depression is that you can at least make something creative with it, like a whole website!
I write poetry and fiction and other works because I hate my fucking life and writing is one of the only things stopping me from offing myself. You’re laughing but I’m not joking. My life is terrible and writing is one of the only things I do that doesn’t make me feel like a complete and utter failure. Life has completely broken me into a person who doesn’t really feel like a person, or maybe I never have, so I distract myself with fictional people who have much more interesting problems than me.
Fun fact for anybody who is as miserable as I am most days: My first “real” poem was actually my suicide note, which I found 2 years after my attempt on a torn legal pad in the back of a closet and decided it was just bitter enough to be reconstructed into something cathartic that also rhymes. But don’t worry, I can write happy stuff too when I feel motivated.
I’m not one to beat around the bush; I write because my life SUCKS and my only reprieve has been books, movies, and video games with good stories. I’m poor as shit, I’m gay, not terribly attractive, and I have to create fictional stories because my real life is remarkably bland and riddled with bad fortune and circumstances that have all but crushed me.
But hey, at least I have popcorn and internet access and my own website.
The more accessible truth is: I write because I have found that people are often softer, funnier, and more complicated than they are allowed to be.
Between my poems, short stories, and the evolution of STDERR, I am trying to make work that feels emotionally honest and structurally alive. I’d like to think that I’m consistent but be warned, I’m a slow writer. Specimens, my debut collection, took me almost six years. This poetry shit is not for the weak.
My first fiction novel has been “in development” since 2021. Turns out that being unemployed and underemployed gives you a LOT of time to write. And writing gives a lot of time to hate your writing and constantly self-edit.
Browse the site at your leisure and reach out if you want to know more about me.