9/1/25
My childhood was secondary colors,
an amalgamation of ancestors, an oblivious homage, expressions and interjections which carry sound through time, sherbet made of sunlight and a bold SOS,
it’s nothing on its own because it can’t be, it’s everything in a mixing bowl and underneath your nails,
stir until combined, stir until combined,
stir linen and needle until smooth, then suck the thread and make it straight (you’ve been here before)
(you’ll get it right this time) (it’s just red and yellow)
(orange is enough to get there)
(orange is enough to grow up entirely)
(you’re nothing without them and I’m still using too much blue) (I’m always using outliers)
(I’m thanking the pigments of my past)
(This is me saying thank you)
— ODH
About the Creator
Olivia Dodge
23 | Chicago
ig: l1vyzzzz & lntlmate
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The Shortest Poem Is A Name
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
Comments (1)
Beautiful I love the use of colours when expressing my first poem here was about colours of changes recently I was thinking to colour poems with it but I also paint so it gets expressed I deeply feel you through it love how you can tell it and translate it all 🌞😊😊🌸🩷much Love and Light to You