Live Out Loud: A Parody on the Harms of Soil Contamination
Fullerton, CA
2025, Junior, Performing Arts
I don’t want to mindlessly scroll all day
Don’t want to “like” scenic posts away
My eyes stare into the screen,
Of flower fields and oceans,
Never feeling the breeze!
These filtered reels perplex my mind
Preaching of change, to care and to act
I need to be as free as I know how to be
I want to live out loud!
Everyday, scrolling, sharing
No one dares look up
while Concrete walls are rising
from the ground up to the sky
Green pastures are turning grey
Is that what we really want?
To forsake the roots growing beneath us
For artificial walls of steel and glass
Replacing fresh gardens with the mute and the bleak
I want to live out loud
We can’t stay silent through this ordeal
We can’t just repost then disappear
I didn’t care before,
But now I realize
I need to live out loud!
The contamination starts to spread
From the roots to our food chains
And deteriorates
Our food source and water
[As] we push aside the wild and fresh
And eat what factories produce
and begin to lose our very soul
That can’t be our future, No!
There are real steps we can take!
If we finally look up from our screens
And plant creation in spaces between
Stand for justice and truth
for our natural world
Our soul will be restored
Like Leah T and Jamie M
Who dream of greener cities and change
We’ll do the same watch us
speak out right now
I want to sing when my heart is full
I want to sing and I want to fly
I want to soar in a sky without a cloud
I want to live out loud!
Reflection
Reflection
In a heavily digitized society, we fail to see past the flying colors on our screen. Though seemingly distant, soil contamination has become a huge localized problem near my school in Santa Ana–where 52.7% of the soil has been found to contain dangerous amounts of lead. I had always viewed these problems to be far away, something that I would only witness through documentaries. However, realizing that this was happening so close to home, forced me to reflect on the lack of green space in our cities– something our bustling city could not have existed without. The song explores how we have utilized social media to distract ourselves from the impending environmental issues, such as soil contamination but also how to revert social media for awareness and support. Environmentalists such as Leah Thomas and Jamie Margolin have been key individuals who have been an inspiration to me, utilizing social media as a catalytic weapon to ignite change and awareness, instead of passive scrolling. Through this piece, I hope to do the same.