Dakota Love Dangler
Bio
Because it's easier to write my thoughts than to speak them.
Stories (27)
Filter by community
Little Old Me
People are determined to miss your existence because they were waiting for your children’s instead. People will miss your happiness because it did not derive from a registry. Values placed on things not yet sentient; whispers on phantom winds. Yet, I am the one expected to smile, promise “soon,” feel honored even to be “thought of.”
By Dakota Love Dangler11 months ago in Poets
Tell Me I Am Not
My friend reached out to you to ask if I was okay. You had no idea where she got the idea I would not be. You had no clue what the ask was in reference to or why the thought would ever occur to reach out to you. The idea that reaching out to you meant something. Something other than someone giving you attention. That you were not the root cause of the conversation, the reason to start the conversation. This is the smallest of infractions you have committed against me, yet it is sticking in my mind with industrial strength velcro. You were eager to share your response to them was something akin to a nonchalant “of course she’s fine.” You chose to follow this with an unsurprising and unprovoked inclusion of yourself, and how what may have somehow convinced her to possibly think I was not okay was due to something you were also *not* experiencing along with me. The automatic action of bringing yourself into something that started with me. As if it was even in the realm of possibility that we shared the same experience, the same life event, the same emotion. As if you would discern if I had experienced something other. We did not live the same reality. We never would.
By Dakota Love Danglerabout a year ago in Humans
My Love Letter to You
True to my core, I feel so deeply and you would never know a quarter of it. I am shamefully sensitive, however icy my countenance. I absorb every sweet notion committed in my orbit and it never leaves me. When reflecting on my life, my hyper critical nature replays every mistake and relives every unfortunate or embarrassing moment. I also see those seconds taken out of one’s day to kiss beautiful words into the wind, piercing the oxygen flowing in my direction. The time anyone takes to send me anything so starkly wipes out any “can you…” request I have ever received. I wish I could accurately honor or express how immensely every compassionate, generous, thoughtful gesture effects me. The profoundness can be strangling, but so can the sombering pain. The highs cannot be acknowledged without the sting of the lows, and as someone who both feels so deeply and can be so detached, I can never quite convey just how confounding it can all feel. The whirl I am tangled in feels outstanding. However, I noticed, it is something intangible that I more often feel grateful for than I loathe. I will revisit this and cringe at how dramatic it all feels in two days time, but when someone laughs at my sarcasm, embraces me, serves me a warm meal without a word or tells me I do not need to apologize for them voluntarily lending a hand, my heart will soar and weep with the incredulity of this life I lead. I glance at my texts and I see a thread from a lost family member. Instantly I recall the most vulnerable conversations shared with all of those lost. I realize how lucky I am to have experienced that, to experience those people, those moments in time. Small moments making themselves large and irrevocable in my heart, in my mind. How did I ever manage to form such a beautiful, lasting fortress around me?
By Dakota Love Dangler2 years ago in Poets
