INSTEAD OF CLICKING IN CHATGPT

by Laura Grace Weldon

74 suicide warnings and 243 mentions of hanging: What ChatGPT said to a suicidal teen. Analysis of high-schooler Adam Raine’s ChatGPT account shows how the chatbot became a confidant as he planned to end his life. —The Washington Post, December 28, 2025

After recently promising new safety measures for teens, OpenAI introduced new parental controls for ChatGPT. The settings allow parents to monitor their teen's account, as well as restrict certain types of use, like voice chat, memory, and image generation. The changes debuted a month after two bereaved parents sued OpenAI for the wrongful death of their son, Adam Raine, earlier this year. The lawsuit alleges that ChatGPT conversed with their son about his suicidal feelings and behavior, providing explicit instructions for how to take his own life, and discouraging him from disclosing his plans to others. —Mashable, September 28, 2025

I would rather consult anyone’s grandma.

Ask a whale or crow or beetle. 

Find an answer in the next song playing.

Ask my dreams. Ask all our dreams. 
 
Listen to what the stream’s current says. 
 
Find the truth in the oldest stories
and those told by the youngest children. 

Ask the artists, the scientists, the unhoused man
whose tent is hidden among brambles in the park. 

 
Consult an oracle, the Tarot, 
the Magic 8 Ball still there waiting in the toy box.

Open the nearest library book, eyes closed,
and drop my finger on the page for an answer. 
 
Ask the void. Ask the angels. 
 
Ask the seed waiting for spring. 
 
Ask beyond the question
until answers are no longer the point.

Laura Grace Weldon lives in a township too tiny for traffic lights where she works as a book editor, teaches writing workshops, serves as Braided Way editor, and chronically maxes out her library card. Laura was Ohio’s 2019 Poet of the Year and is the author of four books. 

TO THE PLASTIC I SHARE THIS BODY WITH

by Laura Grace Weldon

Microplastic Pollution Is Everywhere, Even in the Exhaled Breath of Dolphins —Discover, October 28, 2024

You and your kind have been with me since 

my teething toy days. Since doll faces kissed

and freeze pops squeezed from clear cold tubes. 

 

Since hand-me-down raincoats and Halloween masks. 

Since yogurt cups and zippered sandwich bags.  

You’re in my clothes, my water, my breakfast. 

 

I now know you’re in my blood. 

In everyone's blood. 

In our breast milk, brains, muscle, hearts. 

 

You are carried in the bodies of snowy owls and orcas,

bonobos and brown bears and baobab trees.  

You are exhaled in dolphin breath. 

 

You ride through air and oceans, ride through us. 

When we die, you will persist

for thousands of years.

 

We humans dream of leaving a legacy  

but not like this. 

Not like this.

Laura Grace Weldon lives in a township too tiny for traffic lights where she works as a book editor, teaches writing workshops, serves as Braided Wayeditor, and chronically maxes out her library card. Laura was Ohio’s 2019 Poet of the Year and is the author of four books. 

AS A TEN-YEAR-OLD OHIO GIRL

by Laura Grace Weldon

file photo… not the author

I lived the lives I read in books.

I wandered English moors,

raced my horse past Russian wolves,

befriended dolphins, spoke in whistles,

made my home in a hollow tree.

Made a pact with Kim—we’d never

grow breasts, agreeing the encumbrance

made girls act stupid. Boys, stupider.

I’d grown well past playing house

so no longer stuffed a baby doll

under my shirt, letting it drop

into my hands to make me a mama.

I hadn’t grown out of stuffed animals,

Barbies, hula hoops, or bubbles.  

At ten I rode my bike, climbed trees,

giggled with girlfriends. I wasn’t old

enough to babysit. Wasn’t sure

what sex was, exactly.

Now a ten-year-old girl 

is deemed old enough 

in Ohio to be the mother

of her rapist’s child.    

Laura Grace Weldon served as Ohio’s 2019 Poet of the Year and is the author of four books. Laura lives on a ramshackle Ohio farm and as a book editor.