Lessons in Gravity: Flatten Us

By Leo Muhibzada

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It remains a quarrel of textures, familiar 

with a stranger in the seat opposite 

leaden spongy mesophyll hung 

who’s to say whether it’s black or white? 

 

Pacing through a checked box 

we boil distances in the crevice 

our sweat-glossed latex breathing 

dew leaks to penetrate saliva 

 

gritty from the hum. Bleach shall 

not grow your gardens. In another life 

I’d pierce the roof to falter the treads 

on tongues with a tactile feel. 

 

Liberation pipes the scrunch 

with abstinence, sticky plaster 

watching as it sat painting English 

soil- grey surrender smooth sealed 

 

or indistinct the grain of brick competes 

with iron matte is supposedly our universal 

but singes edges of each door till the bell 

pours ash into the rain melting the ocean 

 

Stretched out this shirt showing white 

paint doesn’t last in the sun 

our sins arranged amongst the cushions 

too wet - mud is safer than flooring. 

 

Here the roses are fabric; they do not repent. 

Their tissue will never bleed the same 

so tilt upwards to half of a sky 

tear down outdated currency 

 

Rather shop with the moon 

can we exceed cobwebs as chemical 

forehead lines while children with lighters 

smooth down splinters of a trapped crow’s 

neck 

 

We know too well the blisters 

where the edges peel with engine 

friction and reflux refurbishment 

that never fails dust. 

About Leo Muhibzada

Leo Muhibzada is 15 and is currently studying GCSE Art, History and French. Their interest in writing has led him to use poetry as an outlet for their experiences of growth, being a young British trans person with a cultural background. Leo aspires to be a writer and publish his own book someday. 

 

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Lessons in Gravity

Poems from Museum of the Home by The Young Poets Collective. Edited by Anthony Anaxagorou. Get a copy of the anthology from our shop