By Neev Pratap
10th grade | Lawrence E. Elkins High School | Texas
Finalist, Climate and Environment category

With lines from “Wasting Away: Rampant Pollution Caused Manatees to Starve. Florida Waters Are Getting Worse” by Zachary T. Sampson, Shreya Vuttaluru, and Bethany Barnes, a Pulitzer Center reporting project

they were never loud.
just
there—
grace without noise,
soft weight moving through green.

but green doesn’t mean grass anymore.
not here.
not after the runoff,
the spill,
the bloom
that kept blooming
until nothing else did.

“the animals were starving to death,
one after another.”
but no alarms,
no red lights.
just
bodies
floating up
like questions
we never meant to answer.

we stood on docks,
held out bags of lettuce—
called it rescue.
called it care.
called it anything
but what it was:
an apology
delivered too late.

“we’d say to ourselves,
we’re going to keep this one alive.”
and sometimes we did.
sometimes
we caught them before the drift,
kept them tethered
to this side of breath—
but never for long.

because they don’t fight.
they don’t flee.
they wait.
for seagrass that doesn’t come,
for quiet that doesn’t kill.

i still mow my lawn.
still watch rain slide down the curb
into the place
they used to live.

some ghosts wail.
some just drift.

Neev Pratap is a high school junior from Sugar Land, Texas, who explores the intersection of environmental science, ethics, and storytelling. Through poetry, research, and advocacy, he examines how quiet injustices, especially those that affect the natural world, can be given a voice. He is passionate about sustainability, environmental policy, and learning how to build a more conscious relationship with the planet. In his free time, he plays tennis, experiments with baking, reads philosophy, and plays Brawl Stars.

Read more winning entries from the 2025 Fighting Words Poetry Contest.