How to Fix the World With a Snapple (A Practical Guide)
I didn’t plan on becoming the sort of person who tries to hold the world together with bobby pins, lace memories, and the last cold Snapple in the fridge. I really did think I’d grow into someone sensible—someone who solved crises with calm emails and well-timed phone calls. But life kept dropping small, startled objects at my feet, and every time I bent down to collect one, it whispered a story I didn’t know I needed.
That’s how poetry recruits you: quietly, insistently, like the friend who says, “Come on, just try it,” and suddenly you’re in too deep.
So here’s the narrative, thinly disguised as advice.
1. Begin With the Mess You Didn’t Ask For
It always starts with something embarrassingly small. A bobby pin slips from your hair, plinks onto the damp cleaning cloth you’ve been avoiding. You freeze. Stare at it way too long. You wonder why this insignificant object feels like a plot point.
That’s the first sign: poets notice what other people step over.
The cloth becomes an altar you never meant to build. The bobby pin becomes a clue. And without fully consenting, you’ve stepped into the story the world is trying to tell you.
2. Let Memory Complicate the Scene
Following that tiny omen, you suddenly remember the women who raised you—strategists in lace, fierce in their gentleness, armed with pastel-colored knives that could slice fruit or give quiet warnings. Their hands taught you that softness can be militant. Their kitchens taught you survival disguised as hospitality. And you realize: You’re inheriting a lineage. You’re chewing the fruit of people who lived long enough for you to find beauty in scraps.
3. Try to Fix One Small Thing
You tie a bow. Literally.
You fold the ribbon, pull it tight, double-knot it, an act so small it barely counts. But today, it’s victory. Because the world is fraying, and sometimes the bravest thing you can do is make a knot hold. A bow is a promise. A confession that says, I can’t repair everything, but I can keep this from falling apart for one more hour.
4. Meet the Version of You You’ve Avoided
Every story forces a confrontation. Yours arrives in grease-stained jeans, leaning against an imaginary counter, swearing he’s got the Toyota part you need. He’s rough. He’s real. His hands have held heartbreak and Snapple bottles with equal seriousness.
And you finally see it: the poet you’re becoming isn’t precious, but someone practical and improvisational, who can troubleshoot the world with whatever they’re handed, even citrus-flavored beverages.
5. Step Into the Glitch
Life expands at the seams. Sirens attempt harmonies. The couple upstairs performs another blistering argument. Buildings vibrate. Bills stack. Your patience thins.
This is the portal moment—the glitch in the everyday script. You hum, quietly at first, then deliberately, to steady yourself long enough to cross the fracture.
On the other side, broken mirrors soften. Roses in your chest burn themselves into medicine.
And you understand that even your flawed presence shifts the air.
6. Claim the Negative Space
Every journey ends with something you were never taught to look for. You read the world backwards, manga-style. You trace the blank places. You name what’s missing—Context, that holy negative space. So let me open the other dimension of your living room—the one where the pillows speak French, and your cat runs a lemonade stand. Where even in fractured, glitching worlds, we make the absurd beautiful, absorbing each moment to transform it.
Marie Anne Arreola is a cultural journalist, editor, and writer from Sonora, Mexico. She is a 2025 Pushcart Prize Nominee and the founder and editor-in-chief of PROYECTO VOCES. Her work—featured in Latina Media Co., Hypermedia Magazine, Lucky Jefferson, and other outlets—explores identity, memory, and grassroots cultural practices throughout the Américas.
