“Struggle Is, So We Are” by Rusty Kjarvik

Mother’s nest, inexperienced. Flight, vivid, unlike a visit to origin.

I am an Occupy demonstrator. Stereotypical shaggy hair, wiry beard enough to age me youthfully. Impressionable, fire-born, Sagittarius without regret or remorse. I have a taste for the insane rush of amateur denial. Ferocity grows within me.

“Bleed with the public truth of mass suffering at the hand of the one percent.” Plastic mantras defied. I feed off the morning dew, preparing. The violent march of our militant society exhales its smog of consumptive dread over the undreamed folds of a quotidian, earthly stress.

With sudden instantaneous manifestation, my surroundings turn into a punctilious mold. Congruent geometry. A shapeless mass of grey and beige frosts the walls of my interior perception with gross boredom. Enraged, I tear with mad vivacity for a new paradigm. Social dominance does not stray from my line of sight. It defies internal contemplation, and steers ever clearly into the bedrooms of the one percent. I give them raw, open tenacity: ringed middle finger.

I am reminded of W. Bush. We geared to angry maximums, first trip outside of the U.S. after his term of totalitarian presidency. “Show torrential defamation at his name.” Our raged rained.

Now, there is a slump in public demonstration. The efforts sway to clandestine operation. There is an underground swell of purpose. An optimistic slumber chimes beneath the sidewalk cafes. I am welcomed at a subterranean meeting place. The air is unpredictable. A contingent wades in passersby and onlookers, wondering about the movement’s end. “Is it nearer than feared?” Thought is palpable.

I have purpose. My delivery is made. Desperate, I ask for a place to sleep. I need to rest on softer surfacing. Concrete smoothed by nylon ages. The muffled sound of sheets once quelled my silent might. Now, I am only stirred with the jarring gripes of untrustworthy leaders from this, our autonomous modus operandi. Darwinian survival.

Sleepless, I cower trenchantly. Guarded walls around the American Embassy in Cairo, Egypt turn the outdoors inside. The streets are emptied with sacred failure. The notches of murder scale high across the batons of the street police. “Have I come here to die for American hubris?” I wait restlessly. Dealing with bureaucrats in twilight hours is like having blow-up sex.

The Cairo dawn inflames my vital organs. I need to escape devil-coaxed Americana. Savagery. I fight for the freedom to move. For my wife and our sanity. We ask only to be awake, and not depraved of a social camaraderie. I know collective suffering. I’ve shared common pain through public speech. I have been communally lightened through action for one being, ninety nine percent whole. We fight for the dignity to rest our heads on a feather of respect in a factory of anthropomorphic holes.