Sweet Riot
by Haley Hodges
My beloved generation when there are no dms left to slide into, where will we go? Lmao—the hour is late and the light is passing. The V of geese in the noontide sky is on its way to something good I'm sure of it. Tell me boo, are you on your way? I'm here to put clover in your Roth IRA. I'm here because the line of your jaw is set for me like a trap, the leaping lynx in the bio. They haven't made a GIF for this, the way bae calls me Icarus when I get mouthy. Behold, each feature—eyes, nose, hair, ears— slowly disappears, my open mouth alone lingers to sing a while before it's taken by the sun. Lo, the hour is nigh, my chariot must run its sweet riot, bro: I'm for the sky. O my people, hear! I'll soon be ash and bone. Good news, come near: one enchanted sword wedged deep in AI's heart of stone demands a human hand. Tug it, hidden king—this withdrawing might save everything. Freak what you heard RE the demerits of pulling out. Godspeed! Take heed— wretched are the labor pains of the artist who never gives birth; shall ChatGPT inherit the earth?
This poem is in response to “As AI advances, doomers warn the superintelligence apocalypse is nigh,” September 24, 2025. NPR.
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Fully enjoyed this.
The poem feels like someone laughing to keep from revealing how much they actually care, using memes, myth, and bravado to hide a very human longing to be wanted. Beneath the jokes and swagger, there’s a tenderness that keeps slipping through the fear of running out of ways to connect, the hope that someone might still choose you in the noise. The flirtation is messy and sweet, full of bravado that barely masks a trembling desire to be seen. Being called Icarus becomes strangely intimate: the thrill of flying too close to someone’s heat, even if it burns you a little. The poem keeps shifting between humour and prophecy because that’s how this generation survives half‑joking, half‑pleading. When it turns toward ash, chariots, enchanted swords, it feels like a whole generation trying to mythologise its loneliness so it hurts less. And beneath the jokes about AI, there’s a real fear of being replaced, of losing the right to make something that feels alive. The final question lands like a quiet wound: will we keep daring to create, or let the machines take the fire from our hands.