VARIATIONS ON THE NEGATIVE SPACE BEFORE HEALING | Bessie Liu
Transcription:
Diagnosis: I am confined to necrosis. I, ever atypical. Variable, but malignant.
Given the extensive degree of loss, I act on future recurrence. I age as roses do
and the ground remakes me too.
Diagnosis: I am organ confined. A negative note to necrosis. I identified the
tumor, the atypical atypia. Call it fear in the case of recurrence. Young age is
complex in this case. The flaw in the diagnosis.
Diagnosis: I am not tumor or necrosis. However atypical, I met my counterpart, I
came to erase it.
Diagnosis: I am extensive I am extensive I am more than background remarks.
More than the above diagnosis.
Diagnosis: I am still here, I have a future in this case. Alive.
“This is a series of erasures created from a surgical pathology report I received. Years later, I am lucky enough to have relegated my ordeal to a distant memory, but writing this poem was greatly important to me back when I was still processing my experiences.”
Bessie Liu is a third-year medical student at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She hopes to eventually work in either primary care or psychiatry, and her interests include narrative medicine and cultural humility. Her poetry has been featured in the Journal of Medical Humanities.