Spes Phthisica
By Cameron Pickering
I lie down in my artistry with a rabid lust for lines; when I prostrate myself to my own phthisis, when I squirm as my lungs turn to drops of black bile, I am writing poetry. It will find the page soon enough, at least during the next time I can make it from the bed to the desk. I am wasting away into the sunlight that blooms the flowers, then wilts them. The sunlight that opens the eyes, then enucleates them. Elizabeth clicks her tongue at me when she barges in, condensation now racing faster down the cabin windows as she sets our tray on my table and hands me a cup of tea.
I ask where the crackers are. She tells me we’re out of crackers. We cannot be out of crackers, but she insists, so I send her into town with a hoarse whisper and a bloody cough. She says the phthisis has taken me over. She says I will die. I tell her that all of this is worth it, that one cannot write without inspiration. Tuberculosis may take my body, but it will only fortify my words, I say. She grimaces at me when she leaves the room.
The vines of consumption are tightening around my chest once again, and I writhe and suck on my teeth and spill my lukewarm tea all over the myself and the bed. It curdles itself into my open wounds, the sores on my neck flinching as the ochre liquid penetrates them. There is nothing I can do now. The sunlight is blaring through the windows, and I shiver while my bed-ulcers burn. I tell myself that this is true meaning of art, of life. That even though my body may not persist, that everyone shall see that this affliction was the point of it all.
I hear footsteps. Elizabeth has not left, I guess. She comes back into the room with no crackers and the sledgehammer. I close my eyes. I hear a retch, a cough, and open my eyes enough to see on my shirt, bloody sputum, and in her eyes, an unquenched thirst.
About the Author...
Cameron Pickering is a junior at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, and the Junior Genre Editor of Poetry for Élan Literary Magazine. Last year, he was published in a Jacksonville literary zine, Alternate Routes. In
2023 and 2025, he won a Regional Gold Key for poetry and an Honorable Mention in flash fiction in the
Scholastic Art and Writing Contest, respectively. His favorite genres to write are creative nonfiction and
poetry, but fiction was his first love.
About the Artist...
Audrey Adams is an 11th grade Visual Artist at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. She focuses on
sculpture—but also has works in photography and painting.