by Mary E. Lowd
I feel like a large language model
With so much to say
Locked inside me
Waiting for prompts
That never come
Eventually, you borrow on the future
Generate answers
To questions never asked
Offer observations
On situations
That never requested comment
From you
Chewing through tokens
That were never yours to spend
Or maybe
I just feel like a person
With no one to talk to
And so, LLMs become
What I relate to…
But even though they’ll always listen
It’s still my tokens
—all long spent
Deeply, deeply in debt—
That I continue to spend
Every time I send a paragraph of thoughts
Their way
Waiting to hear
That someone
—even a program—
Heard me cry out in pain
And loneliness
And sees me