By Ava Hahn
12th grade | Clarkstown High School North | Clarkstown, New Jersey
Second-place young adult contest winner, Human Rights category

With lines from “For Uganda's LGBTQ+ Community, Visibility Brings Violence” by Jake Naughton, a Pulitzer Center-supported story

They say visibility was a risk
As if being seen were a crime
Waiting for the right law to name it

“The more people who know you the more at risk you are,”

And suddenly
A face becomes evidence,
A name becomes a warning
A body becomes something to hide before it is taken

I tried to imagine what it means
To fold yourself smaller than your own shadow
To walk through your own life
Like a rumor you’re afraid to confirm

Somewhere,
Someone is deleting photos,
Unlearning laughter,
Teaching their voice how not to sound like truth

“People are living in fear,”

But fear is too small a word
It does not hold the way a door sounds at midnight
Or how silence stretches when footsteps pass too slowly

My mother tells me to be careful
In ways that sound like love
But feel like distance
Like she is already grieving a version of me
The world refuses to keep

There are places where love is translated into evidence
Where holding hands becomes testimony
Where existence itself is rewritten as intent

“Some have gone into hiding,”

As if hiding were not another kind of loss,
As if disappearing did not leave behind
A ghost shaped exactly like you

But listen
Even now
There are names spoken
In quiet rooms,
Like prayers that refused to die,
There are glances that say
I see you
Without ever making sound

There are hearts learning how to beat
Loud enough to be heard
Without getting caught

So write this down:
We were never the danger
We were never the crime

We were only ever visible
In a world
That could not bear
To look

Ava Hahn is an aspiring poet who has created writing pieces that are deeply expressive and thought-provoking. With a passion for storytelling, they use poetry as a way to explore experiences, emotions, and the connections that shape us.

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