Stage 5 clinger
Stage 5 clinger
Slowly the creeping feeling comes to you like a word on the tip of your tongue
Hello anxious and avoidants alike! Larissa is here (ominous). Like Kelly mentioned in their last post, writing has felt difficult in the past 2 months, and like a future secret PTK collaborator said yesterday “I refuse to feel bad about being unable to write right now”. However, as we have mentioned ad nausea, PTK isn’t meant to be an egoic excercise in publication where Kelly and I feed it our brilliant poetry nuggets and extract from it praise and admiration. Truly not the vibe we are going for.
In this time of grief and pain, we hold on to community, and it is undeniable that this is truly what the PTK vibe is. So I will not apologize (again) for missing a week, or explain why it has been so difficult (I’m sure we all know). Instead, I am going to say thank you. Thank you for being here with me, with us. Thank you to Aysu for having had the courage to submit and for trusting us to publish your beautiful piece. Thank you to all who ask about PTK like it’s a friend. Thank you to all who read and engage. The community is the vibes, and it’s what’s keeping us going!
So, this poem isn’t new, in fact it is prehistoric (aka from 2021 before we launched PTK), but I’ve decided to release it from the vault because it felt needed right now. Here’s to holding on, and clinging on, and making contact. <3 luv u
CONTENT NOTE: this poem makes a reference to a suicide note in the second to last block. It doesn’t get more graphic than just the brief mention but we totally understand if you’d rather skip this one! We love when you take care
Stage 5 clinger
Contact paper, plastic business card, sticky like those fly traps you always saw on top of your grandmother’s counter and wondered if they too felt pain when they tried to flee and had their little legs pulled apart by adhesive assault. Upon close inspection you realized that close Contact is for football players (boys and homoeroticism and late moonlit nights watching lips part). But Drag is not a Contact sport. In your half-hearted arguments with your best friend you might come to realize that these fabricated tiffs are nothing more than an excuse to demonstrate passion and chaos, the two things you believe are the meat and potatoes of love. As you’re thinking of kissing her you might build a time machine and Contact Jodi Foster in 1997, give her a hug and tell her she will be allowed to come out eventually, watch her eyes well up with tears and wonder if before falling into this fever dream you forgot to take out your Contacts last night. You are meant to avoid this sleep avoidance, your new psychotherapist said if you feel afraid of sleep or of what new nightmares your brain has concocted to kiss the soles of your feet gently, making Contact with the cheap navy blue mattress cover your ex convinced you to buy and at first you hated but have now come to realize you hate scrubbing away period stains from white sheets more than you do the thought of him ever Contacting you again. Though the last time you emailed him you were in the midst of a manic episode and allegedly signed him up for newsletters from the Mormon church and edible arrangements. Quickly regretting your decision you built an elaborate web of lies which involved emailing him (as well as your mutual friends and his dad) that your email account had been hacked and all your Contacts stolen by imaginary spammers (Russian perhaps). The too salty taste of delusion filling your mouth like sweat drooling from your forehead. Slowly the creeping feeling comes to you like a word on the tip of your tongue but the word does not exist. Nor does your tongue. But like a magic trick I remind you that your mouth sky is constantly in Contact with your tongue and suddenly it seems too big and out of place. Like climbing into a child’s Ferris wheel, only six feet tall, and feeling its gears struggle under the weight of your body to slowly circle you up and suddenly grind to a halt at the highest point. Your father tells you he has told you so and that you have outgrown your childhood and they must now Contact the fire brigade to rescue you from the world’s most obvious metaphor. But it’s ok because nothing beats the thrill of the chase. But once those final words are uttered and the coffin finally nailed there will still be sweaty awkward teens at the skatepark pretending to nonchalantly talk to each other while secretly pimples pop and hormones boil. Casually and coolly saying “I’ve saved your number to my Contacts”. And perhaps that could be the worlds shittiest suicide note. Or a terrible break up letter with life. But tomorrow you will wake up and watch the dog piss while you smoke that first cigarette and I will still be here. And with elbows smooching knees you become suddenly too aware of your clothes on your skin. Contactfully yours, Me
Wow, the vault is deep so some old poems might be coming, but hey, they are new to you!
Also, there’s definitely a new new poem by a new new contributor coming this Friday! We can’t wait
<3 thank you for reading,
Xoxo
-L