This work was first published in Spread the Word’s Young Writers Collective Anthology, 2025. This anthology stands as a testament to the courage, creativity, and growth of a remarkable group of young poets who have spent seven months exploring the power of language and self-expression. The anthology is more than a collection of poems—it is a celebration of emerging voices, of stories told with boldness and vulnerability.
All of the poems can be read here on our website, or you can download the Young Writer’s Collective Anthology to read as a PDF.
The Things We Grow by Simone Eligon
She turns on the lights,
There’s mould in the shower,
Black holes sucking
The walls, the ridges—
Pressing against her, finding home inside
The fall of her lungs,
The folds of her brain,
The thrum of her heart—
Do you feel them too?
Bottom cupboard, lowest shelf, easy enough to reach
The peroxide that could scrub her clean
Off the bone—let her organs
Crawl, tender, down the drain, But—
What would be left?
She stares at it all,
The water runs,
There’s mould in the shower,
She turns off the lights.
About Simone Eligon
Simone Eligon (she/her) is a South London creative with a degree in Film and Media Studies with a concentration in Screenwriting from Yale University. Her work focuses on Blackness, the body, and masculinity. When she’s not busy writing, Simone can be found in goal on the football pitch for Chatham Town FC.