By Amelia Liang

Watching protesters on fifth and yamhill

on the good side of the river (not tracks)

I was struck by the unity of the crowd so earnest in the
sun, chanting,

holding signs with a grip more determined than that of a
prostitute

with a limp dick in her hand and rent to pay.

And I was brought back to the first political party

I was ever coerced into joining at age eight

when Samantha Ward, blonde, tiny and mean

captain of the kickball team, chose me to be on team red.

I remember being grateful for not being picked last

as I skipped over to the right side of the gym

(and it was, I was assured, the RIGHT side of the gym).

That’s where it all started.

So here I was again, on fifth and yamhill doing the same
thing

except this time it was team blue and there was yelling and
clever slogans and spliffs and thrill seekers and earnest dread-locked youth
with their predictable A in a circle

not A for antelope or aardvark A FOR ANARCHY!

and their As were in red, even though they erred on team
blue

if they had to and I know a good portion of them were hoping
to get arrested

and there was a good amount of contempt

for those who didn’t know that affluence was a sin but who
knew maybe we could save them from their happiness of golden crosses resting
between virginal breasts and we were all there

And there were bloody pictures of dead babies

and pictures of dead grown-ups and pictures of dead animals

and pictures of dead soldiers and lots and lots of smoke

and the police formed a line along a street and their horses
were shitting these wonderful pungent mounds all over the brick and that was
funny but yes we were all there

And I’m sure the communal sense of joy and euphoria was not
due

to the fact that we were making headway for the CAUSE because
let’s call a spade a spade we weren’t but because everyone was thinking

or at least realized in some way that in ten twenty thirty
forty

fifty sixty seventy eighty years

they would be in some stream-lined hospital dying

and even if they died alone childless loveless real-lifeless

they could think back to this present moment when they were part of something bigger
than themselves and say to themselves I did something I was there yes we were
all there

And we were all striving for this purity not racial

DEFINITELY not racial

but this purity in the sense that if this were a perfect
world

we’d be able to stand around in a circle and hold hands

because when you’re holding hands you can’t make a fist

and there was a lot of really earnest talk about the right
way to love

we’d be living in a perfect society

and no woman would shave her legs

and yeah there was a lot of that kind of sentiment going
around

in some form or another and we’d like to believe

that we were all on the same page that there was absolutely

no variation yes we were all there

we were all there

the lovers the haters the love to haters,

so close

together

as no two people should be,

thousands (or hundreds)

withnospaceatall

and enough energy to bomb Hiroshima

if you split us apart.

Amelia Liang is a Junior English Creative Writing major at Kalamazoo College. She is currently studying abroad in Dakar, Senegal.