Please Use AI
By Jo Atkins-Potts
Please Use AI
By Jo Atkins-Potts
Please use AI
when your mother dies.
Ask it what grief feels like.
Let it explain bereavement
in twelve clear bullet points.
Do not spend years
finding her
in the supermarket
by the tomatoes she always bought,
in the smell of rain on warm pavement,
discovering new ways
to miss her.
Please use AI
the next time you fall in love.
Ask it how to know
whether someone is the one.
It will give you a faster answer
than watching a person become familiar,
learning how they take their tea,
which floorboards will wake them,
how their silence sounds
when something is wrong.
And please use AI
for your wedding vows,
your eulogies,
your apologies.
Why struggle
for the right words
when a machine can give you
beautiful ones?
Words untouched by shaking hands.
Words that have never sat beside
a hospital bed.
Words that have never known
the terrible privilege
of having something to lose.
Meanwhile
I will be over here
watching someone I love
fall asleep on the sofa,
the television talking to itself,
rain tapping the windows,
the dog twitching in her dreams,
wasting my life
on these small unremarkable moments
that become,
without asking permission,
the whole thing.
Bio:
Jo Atkins-Potts is a poet, writer, and speaker based in London. Her writing explores love, grief, identity, and the quiet beauty of being human. She is writing her first book. She was paid $100 USD for this poem and her substack can be found here.
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Appendix
Short Story Substack Winners (Paid Subscription Unlocks All 56 Stories)
Angel Bay - When a seaside village holds a secret.
The Dept of Fear: Volume I - Cullen’s Fork - Creeping horror.
Monuments - On Art and Taste.
The Rest Was Only Ash - On war and choices.
Again With Feeling - If you could do violence, and no one else could, would you?
The Timepiece Killer - Morality and justice.
The Unreliable Man - When a character gets away from the writer.
The Giant’s Cave - Coming of age by the sea.
The Silence That Answers - A little mystery and journey.
Charlotte of Caen - On political violence.
A Fait Accompli - Family can be complicated.
Rest Stop - When the call comes, how will you answer?
Death and Mercy - Duty and honor in war.
Intimacy Issues - Taking a chance and acting on advice.
The View From Down Here - A story on finding the right words.
The Note in the Wood - On observation.
In Cherry Time - Moral questions and choices.
I Know - Psychological thriller.
Rosemary and Reuben - Life as a perfect dish.
The Museum of Subjective History - Political spiral.
An Echtra - Of magic, mystery, and love.
Fields Where Lilacs Fade - A lot can be said with just a little.
Anomaly - Healing the world.
Seasons Change - Reverse chronology on the choices of life.
Less - Only keep things that spark joy.
A Gentleman of Sterling Character - Character can’t be bought.
Exit Duty - Old teaches young and young teaches old.
Becoming Cheyenne - Identity, friendship, and human nature.
The Imposter Carla Cluckins - Not all stakes must be huge.
Epilogue - It is only through evil that good can be known.
The Magnifying Tongue - Cult and subtext.
SIDESHOW - How many choices do we really have?
It’s Just a Rattlesnake - Magical realism in the desert.
Smiley’s Tavern - On listening and understanding what we hear.
Sweeter Than Honey - Love and magic and art.
One Brief Shining Moment - Conspiracy theory or conspiracy fact?
Ten Seconds - The Devil only wants ten seconds of your life. Do you take the deal?
Bear - Simple and beautiful love between a father, his daughter, and a stuffed bear.
Mr. Harold’s Gift - Not all gifts that are given are well received.
The Mummer’s Parade - Love that is real and true is often messy.
The Garden Club - The power of rumor to destroy. A story that is both fictional and educational.
Depression Séance - Magic is real in the eyes of a child.
Abrama’s Endgame - Sci-Fi look at artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, and the struggle to survive.
Do-Over - What happens when you get to re-do your life? What does that answer say about the life that was lived?
Goodbye, Debbie Sue - Freedom on your own terms.
The Pawnshop of Intangible Things - The most valuable things aren’t physical.
Make It a Double - Comparison is the thief of joy.
Worms - Creeping horror.
Do Not Resuscitate - Life’s complex choices in end-of-life care.
I Hate Killing People in Kansas City - An action-packed story better than most movies in the past 20 years.
Sometimes, People Just Have Things They Have To Do - Getting the band back together.
There’s Not Much I Don’t Know - Fatherhood and the instinct to protect.
No Greater Love - Sacrifice in the face of slavery.
Oil On Canvas - The future, and regret, always come.
Blues For Rashid - Music turned into story.
Tools
Webster’s 1913 Dictionary - Inspirational dictionary that appreciates the art and beauty of words.
Hemingway App - Online tool that will tighten your writing.
One Look Thesaurus - Wide-ranging thesaurus that goes beyond simple synonyms.
Free Online Short Stories
How To Tell A True War Story - Tale of violence and what it means to know the truth.
Good Old Neon - A look at life and death from a different perspective.
Hills Like White Elephants - One of the best uses of subtext ever.
The Egg - Mind-bending sci-fi look at the reason for humanity.
I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream - Sci-Fi horror about a malevolent AI.
Flowers For Algernon - Looking at the limits of intelligence and love.
To Build A Fire - Tale of survival in the bitter cold.
The Cask of Amontillado - Revenge.
The Garden Of Forking Paths - Spy thriller set in WW2.
Rikki Tikki Tavi - On courage in the face of danger.
All of it, and especially...
"which floorboards will wake them."
just wonderful, so moving