The struggle is real

Les James

The struggle is real. It began with the quintessential spark, a singular explosive moment of time spontaneously igniting the first protest against the existential oppression of absolute nothingness. This inevitably led to unknown numbers of invisible agents secretly causing chaos everywhere, then eventually gave rise to mysteriously self-organizing demonstrations of civil disobedience, which is what catalyzed the movement into an inspirational revolution that even now continues to breathe life into the subversive activities of the nameless masses fighting just to survive, a small few of whom have grown up to become a highly vocal group of disorderly radicals conscientiously challenging the system and universally declaring their right to be free.

The Science

This piece is a description of big history as a social justice movement. It creates an analogy between ideas of order and disorder in the social systems that we exist within and the physical systems that exist within us. We might imagine humanity as the expression of an ongoing social movement involving an increasingly complex struggle between disorder and order. As living organisms, we are also expressions of ongoing physical movements involving a similar kind of struggle. Perhaps human evolution is somehow defined by an evolution of what it means to struggle?

The Poet

Les James is an emerging artist and writer currently living near Richmond, Virginia (Powhatan Confederacy), in the USA. Her work engages with blackness, science, and theopoetics, and has appeared in The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry; The Black Liberation Blueprint; Gumbo Magazine; Edge Effects; and BLUU Notes: An Anthology of Love, Justice, and Liberation. She identifies as a Black, sci-fi fantasy loving, cis-female person of the global majority, and enjoys extended walks, expansive conversations, and extra spicy food. You can find more of her work at www.mallessa.com

Next poem: Viewing life - through the lens of a Cell by Dipika Mishra