By Ethan Hutchison
8th grade | Timberstone Junior High School | Ohio
Finalist in the K–11 contest, Global Health category
With lines from “Neglected and Exposed: Toxic Air Lingers in a Texas Latino Community, Revealing Failures in State’s Air Monitoring System” by Alejandra Martinez et al., a Pulitzer Center-supported story.
In Clover Leaf, Texas,
the air whispers poison
without a warning sign
Children ride bikes—
but cough before the street ends.
It presses into lungs—
tight, burning, wrong—
until breathing feels like a mistake.
Parents whisper in Spanish,
"I pray to God nothing happens to you,"
but asthma tightens the chest,
congestion never leaves,
headaches pound and pound
until thoughts blur into pain.
Skin blooms into rashes,
red against brown,
itching stories not written down.
Eyes sting—
not from tears,
but from something that should never touch them.
Above, the factories breathe louder than people.
Pipes stretch into the sky,
spilling gray into blue
until the sun forgets how to shine
Towers burn
like candles in the night,
flames flickering
over houses that never asked for this.
Clouds hang low—
not soft, not gentle—
but thick with chemicals
no one can name.
Numbers flash on screen,
data lives somewhere,
but it doesn't speak their language—
doesn't say what they’re breathing.
“The government doesn’t tell us anything.”
So mothers guess,
so daughters endure—
migraine, allergies,
bodies that won’t stop reacting
to something they cannot see.
Maybe with answers
“we can take better care of ourselves,”
stay inside
or maybe wear a mask.
But no one told them
so children play
because what else can they do?
Running through air
that slowly takes from them.
And the smoke keeps rising,
like no one is watching,
like no one is hurting,
like this is normal,
But lungs remember,
skin remembers.
the body keeps score
with every breath it was never meant to take.
Ethan Hutchison will be a freshman at Southview High School this fall in Sylvania, Ohio. He is passionate about reading, writing, and art. Ethan also enjoys running, and he participates in both track and cross country. He will be a part of his high school band. Ethan has played the trombone throughout middle school.
Read more winning entries from the 2026 Fighting Words Poetry Contest.