Olivia Dodge
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23 | Chicago
ig: l1vyzzzz & lntlmate
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The Shortest Poem Is A Name. Top Story - August 2025.
8/5/25 THE SHORTEST POEM IS A NAME After Anne Michaels The shortest poem is a name. It is fewer letters than breaths, less thought, more familiarity. It is yours to have and mine to harbor, yours to sustain, mine to fatten with vows that hit your larynx like a medicinal drip. The shortest poem is a hum of every sound that has ever been, and it sounds like nothing at all. It is the quickest fleet of fleeting feelings, the smallest feeling of feat that eats at the things you eat— anything to obscure the sunset view through the windshield— anything to keep the light out. The shortest poem writes itself in agony, reaching around limbs and rooms of consciousness to cross a letter that makes no difference to the thing itself. It plugs its ears when I set the dinner table, holds its breath when I open the blinds, closes its eyes when I say its name. I cannot hold the hand of a thing too small to hear, but I can paint the walls with great reflections of life— too big to feed and too slow to feel for more than the fleeting fleet it takes to reach between a rib and write The End.
By Olivia Dodge5 months ago in Poets
June
6/28/25 In June there were wasps at every corner. There were men and women and children with blown out feathers like peacocks or the figure in that field now floating in every direction at the sound of fire. Fear of being stung is just as bad as popcorn lung or tachycardia to some people. Same levels of adrenaline and whatnot. It’s been beautiful for a year but the news sites keep writing the same flood over and over again and we’re starting to worry about the pipes. You’re starting to give in to the thing that I needed your strength to stop. Now we’re using plastic cups instead of glassware because the kids have nowhere else to go so they gather at every turn and they don’t get paid to be here so it’s no use saying excuse me. They don’t even pull the legs of their pants up so it’s leaving tracks all over the floor. In June it’s cold and then it’s hot and the rain should stop sooner or later. The families in soft sand don’t think about peeling off denim skirts in the bathrooms because they have a roast that’s ready at home and the kids are starting to get hungry. Don’t worry— he took the feathers off. He’ll make sure your bowl is bone-free and he called his friend to update the plumbing and, even so, nothing could take your mind away from the plate in front of you. Wasps don’t build their nests in places they aim to destroy and June doesn’t hold off disaster for anyone. Pack an umbrella and drench your skin in sticky glow. Just because it’s their only choice doesn’t mean they aren’t grateful.
By Olivia Dodge5 months ago in Poets
the pride bus
Beauty is around me today because a woman on the bus says so. She says sorry for interrupting and it’s funny how that’s a conversation just the same. I tell her where I work and to ask for me if she comes by and I know her bus stop so it’s okay to share. When she gets off she complains everyone else is too loud (they are) and she’s a stranger so I forgive her. Customers tell me I complement myself and I gladly take credit for it. I say it’s day three without a wash and they differ because they’ll never see me again. It still feels like purpose swims through time because we all like beautiful things. Even when it’s trapped outside our skin. Even when it takes a stranger and the right lighting and it’s okay for me to say because I’ve never been good with performances. Just because I sound different doesn’t mean I am and just because the bus is loud doesn’t mean I can’t make a friend.
By Olivia Dodge7 months ago in Poets
Analogy for Hens
What’s it say about me that returning to my rejections is the first time I’ve felt normal in a week. That despisement holds my hand and tells me when it’s clear to walk. That I show up at last call and get a meal for two. That I can’t feel my teeth after the first drink and I admire the ocean of friendship I already have in this new glass shack. It’s cold like the last one but I know it won’t be forever. They installed a heater for me and the hens out back so we can hatch the double yolked eggs in time for breakfast. What’s it say about us that providing life for life is just giving thanks. That we equate normalcy with any day the pain stays in one spot. Tell yourself it’s easier to ignore that way. Easier to walk with your eyes closed and let God decide your fate. Easier to go back to clay floors when glass straw just makes an eerie view from all sides. At least now you don’t have to look at the dirt. At least now you can say it’s all in your head.
By Olivia Dodge7 months ago in Poets
6:50pm
So if you can’t do what you love, you survive. You pierce your ears above the bathroom sink and try to look anywhere but at the blood. Your daughter starts teething and you rip the earrings out again. They were a gift from your father but you always hated them. It serves you right, too. Doing what you love is without raise, without pull, so you take the plug from the drain and watch. You find yourself in cages made of gold that’s worth more than the girl in your house. She’s foreign like the walls and the rules you wrote on the mirror. You can’t believe you wrote those— you don’t believe any of it. You write a file of the things that break her teeth and export it into the trash. It’ll stay there forever and you’ll find it when you’re a decade older, but you still won’t find the humor in it. None of it makes any sense because living and surviving are synonyms and they’re not the same at all.
By Olivia Dodge7 months ago in Poets
5/1/25
ALL THE LIES I’VE TOLD TO PROTECT MYSELF (from myself) it would hurt more to let it out / stars can see you too / everyone feels the same / all subjective, everything / it matters / it doesn’t / add another layer and it’ll be perfect / time will never run out / it’s simple / this is the last time / we can stay here / nothing is different / no one has a stroke at twenty-three / permanence doesn’t exist / you’re invincible / no one is looking at you / you’re invisible / he would not only approve of, but love this / your life is the only one that’s real / happiness only grows over time / they don’t hurt like you do / everyone has cold hands / they understand / just pretend it’s not there, so it’s not / teeth won’t break that easily / this is as good as it gets / it will be warm forever / everyone can see it / no one wants to
By Olivia Dodge7 months ago in Poets
I am whoever you want
May 15, 2:20am So I’ll be the friend who proofreads your emails, and the one to mediate an argument to which I have no ties, and the one who makes a present instead of buying it. I’ll be somebody you like, you invite to everything but don’t expect to show up, and I’ll be there if the crackling in my legs hasn’t gone through vessels and veins. I’ll be the friend who takes photos from different angles and deletes the bad ones, and I won’t tell you that the sun makes your skin look like sorbet, or how I never wanted to write your resignation or give away that necklace for your special occasion. I’ll be someone who adores you for the time spent together, wishes you happy birthday and tries to mean it, and I’ll be the one to give you advice that needs deciphering when all you wanted was enablement. You’ll keep me around because you like how my brain works, and I’ll keep you around because I don’t have a desire to change in any real way. We’ll keep each other for future reference and reach out with a blessing once a month, and I won’t answer your calls because I’m massaging the muscles in my thighs and trying to remember how to walk again.
By Olivia Dodge8 months ago in Poets
