Ellie Spirrett

I must come from the sickness because only a mother could suffocate like this

Last night I found something lodged in the base of my spine

and I tugged at it until my home came out. The home where

I first became poison. Drunk from the chest of day old take

-away and matted with dreams. The sun would only meet

me in the dark, and no matter how tired I was I always showed

up on time to hear her secrets.  She told me that if I poured any

-more sleep into my stomach I would become a fire hazard.

I said, good

burn this room to the ground it is holding me too tight.

She said, my dear, somewhere we are all dead. 

I piped myself into that house

and it piped itself into me.

Grew branches up the inside

of my limbs so we couldn't tell

who rotted first. It would be nice

to say that home poisoned me

but now that I have left it, it

is standing up straighter.

I found a new bed and blew out the ghosts in my bones like dandelion seeds

but every time I left them under my pillow they followed me out the door.

This is what happens when you call it the same name you call yourself 

I am the poison. The plaster in my arteries calls to the walls behind

my back. Splatters like a nightmare. Installs me in again.

Ellie Spirrett is a writer and artist from the UK. She is primarily a poet, but also dabbles in short story writing, painting, drawing and textiles. Her work is surrealist, and brings out the absurdity of mundane life, tackling chronic illness and mental health.