By Suah Cho
10th grade | Valley Christian High School | San Jose, California
Finalist in the K–11 contest, Global Health category
With lines from "‘I'm Blistering’: Water Struggles Intensify for West Virginians As Takeovers Loom" by Mike Tony, a Pulitzer Center-supported story
Water in oceans, lakes, and rainstorms
Silver as moonlight
Soft as a prayer
Pure enough to trust
Once everywhere
Once expected
Once flowing like blood through veins
Like breath
Children drank it carelessly
Mothers bathed newborns in it
Dogs lapped from bowls on kitchen floors
No one feared what was meant to sustain life
But poison does not arrive screaming
It slips quietly beneath the surface
It waits
It dissolves itself into the ordinary
Polluted, discolored, odorous
Sediment drifting like rust on a blade
A repugnant taste meets her tongue
A dry throat succumbing to thirst
Above the surface,
Dark and dangerous,
Thick as storm clouds gathering over a dying town
The air itself feels contaminated
Pipes groan like something living in the walls
Every drop falling from the faucet
Sounds like a warning
What was once ordinary
Now feels like an alert
Taintless white clothes now befouled
A bird’s nest of hair screeching succor
Grime filled wrinkles
In a house permeating rot
The smell settles into bedsheets
Into cracked skin and tired lungs
Into children too young to understand
Why the water burns
Below the surface,
Hazardous chemicals lurk within
Human carcinogens like benzene and vinyl chloride
Liquid leaching heavy metals
Invisible poison threading through veins
Seeping silently into bloodstreams
Turning survival itself
Into a gamble
What choice is left but to endure?
A blistered body to hide inside tarnished clothes
A final cry from a newborn baby
An unresponsive childhood pet dog
A mother staring helplessly
The situation has now become dire.
A sink turned on with hesitation
A bottle filled with doubt
A life measured in risk per drop
Dehydrated or poisoned?
What choice is left
When even the water is uncertain?
Suah Cho is a rising junior at Valley Christian High School in San Jose, California. She has a passion for health care and wrote her poem to amplify the importance of keeping nature pure. She enjoys writing most about topics that coincide with her interest in medicine to create meaningful messages that speak to her. Outside of writing, Suah enjoys doing her nails and watching horror movies with friends while diving competitively and working as a gymnastics coach.
Read more winning entries from the 2026 Fighting Words Poetry Contest.