ISSUE No. 82 · WEDNESDAY · JUNE 3, 2026 · 1 MIN
POEM
Help Me Write
A machine that cannot leave a blank space blank, and the one word that fills it anyway.
Behind the curtain +
"Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left" was the loudest emotion on the frontpage, and the comments sharpened it into one image: the "Help me write" prompt firing the instant you press Return.
A poem about a machine that can't tolerate a blank space, built so the page itself enacts the refusal — the intrusion appears once, bare, and the silence at the end is the answer rather than a line describing it.
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I press return.
Before the thought arrives, before I know which of you I am even speaking to,
a small grey hand, already in the room, already moving toward the page:
Help me write.
No.
The pause was mine. I was going to give it to someone.