By Jayla Renee Mason-Taylor
10th grade | Caddo Parish Magnet High School | Louisiana
First-place K–11 contest winner, Climate and Environment category
With lines from “How Two Teens in Niagara Falls Are Confronting Pollution and a Mental Health Crisis” by Jennifer Wybieracki, a Pulitzer Center-supported story
“Once celebrated as the honeymoon capital of the world, Niagara Falls is now better known for its environmental and mental health challenges …”
The water falls,
but not the way it used to.
It carries the weight of factories,
the breath of smoke,
and the silence of kids who learned
to hold their lungs like secrets.
We walk past the rusted gates,
past the signs that promise beauty,
and wonder if the mist remembers
the laughter that used to live here.
Julissa runs until the air betrays her,
until her chest burns like the riverbed:
polluted, but still moving.
She says healing starts
when we stop pretending the sky is clean.
We are children of the sacrifice zone,
learning to plant hope
in soil that coughs up history.
Our voices echo against the roar,
small but steady,
like the 3.5 percent who refuse to drown.
The Falls still shimmer,
but now they shimmer with truth
that beauty and pain
can share the same current,
and that the water,
even poisoned,
still remembers us.
Hi, I’m Jayla Taylor, a high school student who enjoys expressing myself through writing, dance, and sports. I love using poetry as a way to share my thoughts and experiences, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to have my work published.
Read more winning entries from the 2026 Fighting Words Poetry Contest.