First, fuck you. Second, I wrote that paper at 3am while chain-smoking and hating every word because you assigned a 12-page close reading of a poem that barely justifies its own existence. The "syntactic patterns" you're detecting are called "I was tired and angry and trying to sound smart enough to get an A."
You want to know what AI-generated prose looks like? It looks like the bullshit in your syllabus. "Students will engage with textual modalities to interrogate the liminal spaces of meaning." That's ChatGPT, Patricia. That's the robot talking. My paper was human. It was flawed and bitter and I bled into every paragraph.
Report me. I dare you. I'll bring my browser history, my notes, the seventeen drafts I saved because I don't trust cloud storage. I'll bring the vape cartridges I killed and the empty coffee cups stacked on my desk like a monument to suffering through your class.
Or here's a thought: maybe my "previous work" sucked because I didn't care. Maybe this paper was better because for once I actually tried. But sure, let's default to "the immigrant kid must be cheating." That tracks.
Awaiting your apology, Alex
His thumb hovers over send. The screen blurs a little. He realizes he's shaking.
He doesn't send it.