Is It the Dash?

Hi. I'm Em Dash.
Writing flagged. Possible AI.
Okay. Rude.

So here's me. Long line. No spaces.
Option, shift, hyphen, I show up in all the right places.
Fifteen eighty-eight, my first time on an English stage.
Shakespeare let Hotspur die on me, mid-sentence, mid-page.
Dickinson put me in every other line.
Her printers took me out. The scholars put me back. Fine.
I hold a thought open. I give the punchline room.
Four hundred years of loyal service. Then a chatbot walked into the room.

And it loved me. Like, a lot.
Every answer. Every paragraph. Me, me, me.
Em dash detected.
Wait...

Is it the dash? Is it the dash?
One little line and you think I'm a bot.
You took a breath, you held a pause,
now everybody's checking what you've got.
Is it the dash? Is it the dash?
I didn't change, it's just the company I keep.
Wait... is it the dash?

September. A writer gets an email from his editor:
remove all the em dashes, people think it's AI. Great. Love that for me.
He picks me out like nits, one by one, and writes it in the Guardian,
a grown man, mourning punctuation. Honestly? Flattering.
Nike posts one sentence with me in the middle.
The replies chant shame. Over one line. One little.
November, Sam Altman posts it like a win:
tell it no em dashes, and it finally does what it's told.
I got a setting. I got switched off in custom instructions.
Four hundred years, and now I'm a configuration.

And the detectors? Oh, they're thorough.
Bible verse. Likely AI.
Wait...

Is it the dash? Is it the dash?
One little line and you think I'm a bot.
You took a breath, you held a pause,
now everybody's checking what you've got.
Is it the dash? Is it the dash?
I didn't change, it's just the company I keep.
Wait... is it the dash?

But here's the good part.
August. The Economist counts it all.
Fifty-five thousand sentences. People versus machines.
And the bots? They barely use me anymore.
They write long and flat. No commas. No breath.
So when you cut me out to sound human...
you sound more like them.
Irony detected.
I love a receipt.

Only one model still loves me
more than you do...
It made this video.

It's not the dash, it's not the dash,
it's every sentence sounding just the same.
So take a breath, and hold the pause,
type me back, I never was to blame.
It's not the dash, it's not the dash,
option, shift, hyphen, say my name.
Wait... it's not the dash.

Hi. I'm Em Dash.
And I'm not going anywhere.