Olivia Dodge
Bio
23 | Chicago
ig: l1vyzzzz & lntlmate
Stories (107)
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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 Dodge9 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 Dodge9 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 Dodge10 months ago in Poets
Love, Leaves
4/12/25 Geography is strange. I am here but I was there and you are never as far as I thought you were. I’m not allowed to love you anymore. Lots of things are strange. The itch in my palm. The ire in my stomach. Where do you feel your emotions— on the map, in a traffic light? In your throat, on your scalp? Bugs and hemispheres, electricity and flem— it doesn’t matter what it is if you don’t know where it’s from, if the last time you drew that house from memory it didn’t come close to the real thing. I’m not allowed to love you anymore, because the lights went out and the carpet had too many stains to make back the deposit. It’s a twelve hour drive, for God’s sake. I’m not allowed to love you anymore, so I’m giving my love to state lines, where the directions are tricky but I can’t blame anyone but me if the tire goes flat and I sleep under the stars with nothing but an itch in my palm to remind me that love, when it’s leaving, looks farther than it actually is.
By Olivia Dodge10 months ago in Poets
4/15/25
A NON-EXHAUSTIVE LIST OF THINGS I’M NOT SORRY FOR crying on the bus during rush hour / going five years without hearing my grandparent’s voices / using all the sticky notes / being glad our cat died before our vacation / stealing food from grocery stores / stealing anything I can / going to bed early / just to lie there for hours and wonder if I should have been more thorough when I was fourteen / leaving the trash by the back door / going five days without washing my hair / going twenty three years without saying I love you / crying in your bed on our first date / never learning how to cook raw chicken properly / never learning how to ride a bike without feeling like it’s a test / never learning how to speak / never learning how to feel things without becoming them / not being able to cry when I wish I could / suddenly knowing how to cry when I shouldn’t / knowing the difference between platonicity and romance / just to call them by my own name
By Olivia Dodge10 months ago in Poets
Unforgivable Stitches
April 2025 11:24pm To be a dreamer is foolish, taught to us in shadows of expression, fools approach me more than a decent living nowadays, and do you think you can go on living? Do you think you can string it together, make a pretty picture on a cork board, and we’ll all forget that you can’t tell up from down? That you were born all twisted up and unforgiving? Fools don’t approach you anymore, you carved yourself a chasm in bedrock but it’s really made of the same cushions your ancestors stitched together, and what does string have to do with lessons learned? To be a dreamer means criss-crossing plays an essential role, to be a fool means you have already been assigned a part, and to be me or to be you means a decent living is nothing to be taught, nothing to be learned, but to be recognized. We can go on living because what else is there to do, other than break apart the puzzle and stick the box in the closet to be well rested for our children. It’s upside down, so mind your head in thirty years, and if a missing piece falls beneath wood, then it’s time to dig. The clock is ticking. Dreams won’t satisfy anyone. Teach them of light source and make sure you get the thick strands from the store down the road, it’s worth it in the end.
By Olivia Dodge11 months ago in Poets
Cremation Society
3/2/25 8:31pm I look up just in time to see The Cremation Society of Illinois every morning but I’m never conscious enough to take in the sunrise and I wish there was a camera wired to my brain be- cause I could never recreate the things I see every day but watching reflections swim across can just be for me it’s okay to keep this for myself sunset against sunset this I can recreate I know I can but I can’t seem to start orange against blue orange against grey orange against the fear that digs into my elbows I’ve lived here four years and never seen these symphonies played before me I look up just in time to get off at my stop and I hate to think of strangers in the way I do without a sound you speak the words of a thousand men and I can start as soon as you see me as soon as you write it down of whitecaps you will feel the resentment I will never let go
By Olivia Dodge11 months ago in Poets
