4.10.2026

WHEN I LIVED FOR THE REVOLUTION

Photo: Dynlann Hendricks

Life was glorious in those days. The vanguard
—that was us, with our refined class consciousness—

felt at home in any American town.
We’d hitchhike or pool money for the Greyhound

and organize the masses. That’s how we found
the brothers and sisters we were meant to love,

screw the petty bourgeois nuclear wastrels
from our fascist families of origin.

We could see ourselves turning our parents in
if it came to that. We slept on stained sofas

and moldering subfloors. We shared food. Weed too
when we had it. The principles were simple

once you got them down. At last I could explain
Mrs. Švec, the lady who’d moved in next door

when I was eight. She had a bad perm. She limped
and spoke with a thick Hungarian accent.

I used to spend hours in her backyard garden.
I helped her prune tea roses and bleeding hearts.

She told me about the day a thousand tanks
rumbled into Budapest, how people died,

how the soles of her feet split on the long walk
into Austria. Back then, I couldn’t see

the uprising for what it turned out to be,
but now, at nineteen, I’d learned the history

of that running-dog strike against the Party
and our cause. Mrs. Švec’s pain had been well earned.

---