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. 

APPLESAUCE

by Gil Hoy

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court . . . blocked the next three executions scheduled in Oklahoma pending its review of the state's controversial three-drug cocktail for lethal injections. The ruling was expected, since both lawyers for the convicted murderers and the state itself had urged the justices to intervene. But Oklahoma also wanted the court to allow executions to resume if it could find a replacement drug, and the court left open that possibility. --USA Today, January 28, 2015; Cartoon source: Penn Live

If the supreme court

Says 43 minutes
Writhing squirming
On death cot

Is cruel and unusual,
We have tried true

tested alternatives.

Shave head, part of leg
   To welcome flow of electrons,

Strap chest, legs to chair
Metal skullcap

electrodes on head
Moisten sponge---
   j-u-s-t   right

Hood over head
Flip switch---

Asphyxiation
   Cardiac arrest
nervous system Paralyzed

Defecation,  urination
Smoke steam Escape
  from body
Boiling Blood

“The body’s temperature
becomes so hot, the flesh
falls off
if touched”

Third fourth
degree burns
Body may catch
   Fire

The Sound of
Sizzling Bacon tickles
your ears

Eyeballs pop out,
  but rest comfortably
     on cheeks

Body bleeding
body Cooking, The

sweet smell
of broiled vulgar Flesh

permeates the chamber
into your nostrils.


Gil Hoy is a regular contributor to The New Verse News.  He is a Boston trial lawyer and studied poetry at Boston University, majoring in philosophy. Gil started writing his own poetry and fiction in February of last year.  Since then, his poems and fiction have been published in multiple journals, most recently in The Potomac, The Zodiac Review, Harbinger Asylum and Earl of Plaid Literary Journal.