You can find it in candy, in baked goods, maybe in a decadent mole. You can sip a hot cup of it on a cold day; you can smother ice cream with it. Just about everyone has tasted chocolate, most find it absolutely delicious (can you even be trusted if you don’t?). We give it on days of love, days of sadness. July 7 is even dedicated to chocolate. It should come as no surprise, then,
that Aztecs thought cacao seeds were a gift from the gods. Even used them as currency. While letting chocolate melt over your tongue in near ****** fervor, do you think of it as a rotten thing? Such glorious, mouth-watering, diving chocolate starts its life from slimy, bitter beans hiding inside an alien looking cacao pod. And the first step to chocolate is fermentation. You let it spoil.

Perhaps only those with podopholia would joyously consider licking a foot. Yet, how popular: to consume milk rotting with the same bacteria found on our feet and in our armpits. The smellier the better. The French, so admiring of this, call the most offensive, tasty smells “god’s feet”! Like chocolate, cheese is also delicious rot.

Not all rot is bad rot. Fermenting kept civilization alive and fed before the invention of refrigeration. From sauerkraut to pickles to beer—and the list goes on—many culinary masterpieces were achieved.

We, however, are not food
no matter how much we tried to consume
one another. We aged
but did not ferment into something greater
than ourselves.
You do not satisfy my sweet cravings,
I do not intoxicate you.
We simply spoiled; turned toxic.