By Shrey Sankhe
12th grade | Thomas Edison Energysmart Charter School | Somerset, New Jersey
First-place young adult contest winner, Information and AI category

With lines from “Data Centers: The Heat Behind the Cloud” by Gabriel Farías and Miguel Dobrich, a Pulitzer Center-supported story

The everlasting, selfish want to be remembered,
To leave a path that will never be forgotten—
I ask a machine to hold my selfish requests,
My searches, my essays, my photos, my passwords,
Small proof that I was ever there.

I’d imagined it in a bubble, all floating somewhere,
Weightless and without consequence,
A cloud with no shadow, a mark with no impact.

But even digitally, memory needs a home.
Memory needs land
Memory needs wires
Memory needs security gates and cooling systems and water.

“But while real clouds give shade, these buildings give heat.”

I failed to understand the internet has a temperature.
It burns hot.
Every click transfers to physical locations,
A place with wildlife and workers,
A place with roads and clean air.

The silent killer that seems so forgiving,
The neglected center that reaps the nutrients from our soil.
Its seemingly light blue smoke causes us to forget
The everclear presence of its impact.

But it's there
Not with a changed name, not with negligence.
It moves to what we love,
Our communities, our loved ones, our bodies.

“No cooling system eliminates heat: It merely moves it outside.”

Outside is nothing.
Outside is where people live.
Outside is where children wait for buses,
Where old men sit on benches feeding geese,
Where someone’s backyard is trampled for the needs of the selfish.

So now, when I see my screen,
I remember the ground under it,
The lives lost,
The selfishness in doing so.
It's here humming,
Asking who must feel the heat.

Shrey Sankhe is an incoming freshman at New York University's Stern School of Business. Fascinated by emerging technologies and their unintended consequences, he is specifically drawn to the environmental impact of artificial intelligence and growing energy demands of the new digital world. He hopes to continue contributing to conversations about building a more sustainable future while pursuing his interests in technology, writing, and business.

Read more winning entries from the 2026 Fighting Words Poetry Contest.