I’ve only seen the sweet, mucilaginous pulp

of a cacao fruit on Netflix. Yet, chocolate.

Packaging. Factories. How are we so disconnected?

 

Disney star Zac Effron asks at a school

for sustainable living in Costa Rica.

The room hums. Someone says “world peace.”

 

A white man in a wife beater blows his lid

on a street corner, yanking a woman’s braids.

I step in. Hotlines on speed dial, I spent

 

so many years trying to escape this life.

It’s time to go in another direction.

The way you do anything is the way you do everything.

 

Never take bitter advice. Call the blight

what you will—cancer, greed, apathy, war.

Cortisol can stay in the bloodstream

 

for up to 30 minutes. Who’s honking

at joggers? Slow down, speed up,

step back. Humans are flammable, malleable.

 

The sun sets everywhere—in between

buildings, overlooking the ocean, on benches—

in a cinematic fit of existentialism.

 

Wherever we are, there we are.

When a bus driver asks for a seat to hold

a woman seizing, who stands first?