Francesca Kritikos is a 27 y.o. here for Birth Control and Pregnancy Evaluation (STAT BETA)
Reason for visit: Positive pregnancy test and bleeding
Since last normal period/pregnancy ended: vaginal bleeding
Home pregnancy test: positive
Birth control adherence: not using
Vaginal bleeding: Heavier than menses
Onset: Yesterday
Passing clots?: Yes
Passing tissue?: Yes
Neurological:
Mental Status: Alert and oriented to person, place, and time.
Psychiatric:
Mood and Affect: Mood normal.
Behavior: Behavior normal.
Vitals reviewed.
Encounter for pregnancy test, result positive
- hCG, quantitative, pregnancy
- POCT pregnancy, urine
Diagnoses and all orders for this visit:
Complete spontaneous abortion (Primary)
- Pregnancy Ultrasound
Patient educated about abnormal result and the implications of possible ectopic pregnancy. Advised of recommended follow-up testing and implications of no testing/treatment. Explained and discussed management options and outside referral options. Patient informed of her responsibility to obtain follow-up care.
To start off this year, I had a miscarriage. I didn’t know I was pregnant; I’m not sure how far along I was. I’ve always had irregular periods, and was in principle against the false assurance of perfect hormonal regularity that birth control pills would offer me. I’ve never been interested in pretending.
In fact, I’ve always been drawn to the peeling away of layers. At 10 years old, in the hospital, I scratched my eyebrows off. As a child, I’d pick scabs and press the cut against a piece of piece of paper, so I could examine the blood.
My grandmother is a hoarder; at her condo in suburban Athens, we open her armoire to tubs of cold creams that expired in the 80s, beautiful fabrics of soft beige and deep blue still in their original packaging, cleaning supplies from brands long discontinued, bird-shaped perfume bottles still filled to the brim.
At our home in Chicago, we help her go through closets full of fur coats, silk dresses, nylon blouses, too-tight leather heels she squeezed her feet into. Which is not to say my yiayia was a rich woman; she was a coat-check girl at the Drake hotel when she met my pappou, and later worked in a pharmaceutical factory.
But she loved to buy nice things, for herself and her family, with the money she did have, and I think she felt - she feels - real comfort from keeping those things around her, protecting her like an amniotic sac.
As a result, or a consequence, of this material abundance, my mother and I both tend toward throwing everything away. Which is not to say we aren’t sentimental, but to be in the act of paring things back is our natural state.
My father will often say that as soon as he puts down a glass he was drinking from, my mother will pour its contents into the sink and put the glass in the dishwasher.
I know that if there is such a thing as the afterlife, I will face judgment for my wastefulness: plastic bags of half-eaten foods, lightly-worn clothes, slightly-old cosmetics thrown in the trash as soon as I felt I had no other use for them.
It’s safe to say I’ve adopted a similar attitude toward the composition of my poetry. All the usual minimalist cliches - less is more, remove one thing, keep it simple - are staples in my poetry toolbox.
I struggle to finish poems more than half a page in length; I don’t understand what could possibly need to be said in that amount of space. It’s not that deep. We’re animals.
Nature itself seems to confirm my tendencies. At the moment something tried to grow inside of me - my baby - no sooner was it violently expelled from me, my body seizing with spasms and cramps to eliminate it. It was something more than just my body; it was something I didn’t need, the universe seemed to be telling me.
But maybe I’m not doing myself justice. Maybe I take things away because it’s easier than finding a place for them; maybe I cut back not because excess is inferior but because it’s frightening.
You’re less likely to get in trouble when you don’t speak. And it’s safer to hide behind silence than it is to let the world know what you’re thinking.
Once, high on psilocybin, I spent hours laying facedown on the floor thinking I’m not going to get in trouble I’m a good girl I’m not going to get in trouble I’m a good girl...
One of my resolutions for this year is to take better care of my body. To not deprive it, to nourish it, to comfort it when it is in pain. Prior versions of me would not hesitate to take the pound of flesh I believed was due, from myself to myself.
And I believe that language is an extension of the body, that we compose our poems in parallel with the way we carry ourselves. There is no separating works of art from works of the flesh.
So it’s time for me to start thinking more about body composition: what can we learn from our bodies to write better poems?
And by writing better poems, I mean developing the language that bridges the gap between the skin and what it touches, what touches it.
I mean constructing the forms that house the most vulnerable parts of ourselves.
I mean using artifice not to cloak or to hide but to let others taste of our flesh, while still remaining whole.
So in this newsletter series, I want to examine poetry - my own and others’ - to pinpoint what makes a poem a body, and how to serve this body to the best of our abilities.
If a poem is a body, the poet is its keeper.
I want to pick apart the flesh of the poem and put it back together, hopefully stronger. I want to work with poets to press our fingers onto the pulse of language and listen.
I want to make that pulse louder and louder.
What are we without the fruit of our labor?
To be considered for a future Body Composition newsletter, please email 2-5 poems and a biographical statement to fmkrit@gmail.com.
God I love this. Can’t wait to read more.