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 Chest of Drawers Speaks Out by Ellie Spirrett
They crack everything but themselves.
They dug their nails into this house and split it open.
I can feel the walls scratching my spine trying to fight back
or run away. This is not a home anymore.
The man frays carpets and scuffs the walls with his voice.
It is stained with alcohol rings
and when he is gone the echo flops like a fish
that’s jumped out of a boiling fishbowl.
I heard him say “the worst thing a man
can do is to hit a woman.”
But haven’t I seen him bury them
into a bed until they are feathers?
The woman stuffs all this down the back
of the washing machine. Lets corpses pile.
Once, her cheek wacked against mine and chipped us both.
She left my wound open long enough to soak
the lingering force of his fist from the air.
Then, without bothering to sand out the splinters of his voice,
she trapped it under thick paint, the closest
colour she could find to my wood.
Can’t you see the brush lines, exposing her trembling hands?
But the child watches from the corners of the room
and every day she becomes more wooden and less girl.
When the house is still again, and the cracks hide,
she runs between the man and the woman like a pendulum
trying to bring time back to its natural rhythm.
Why does she keep running to the things that will kill her?
About Ellie Spirrett
Ellie Spirrett is a poet and member of Spread the Word’s Young Writers Collective. She writes about disability, ableism, friendship and the loneliness epidemic. Ellie is the self advocacy coordinator at Lewisham Speaking Up, an organisation that supports people with learning disabilities to campaign for their rights.