francesca
kritikos
BUREACRACY GETS ME WET
Bureaucracy gets me wet
Bent over
You refuse to see me
As anything but
What you need
It makes it so
Nothing else exists
I dream of sterility
It’s better
For both of us
When we face each other
One of us is just
A resource to be managed
I have never been more
In love
GOING TO THE STORE
Going to the store
for calla lilies and 7-up
I believe in beauty
and famine
in my beauty
and my famine
HE CALLS ME
He calls me
Frances Farmer
He knows I have my place
on the path of least resistance
He fills me with spit
& puts me to sleep with no pillow
He asks me in the morning
if I want one
Francesca Kritikos (@fmkrit) is a Greek-American writer and editor currently based in Chicago. She wrote the poetry chapbooks IT FELT LIKE WORSHIP (Sad Spell Press, 2017) and ANIMALS DON'T GO TO HELL (Bottlecap Press, 2021) and the full-length poetry collection EXERCISE IN DESIRE (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2022). Her poetry has recently appeared in Greek in Χάρτης and in English in Blush Lit, the Des Pair Quarterly and Autofocus, and she also wrote a creative-critical essay about Joan Didion published by The London Magazine.