I am crushed and chewed and gnashed in the jaws of power. I am helpless. I am shaped like the teeth that hammer from the satellites. When I was beaten, I was beaten. When I was used, I was used. I was not particularly cunning or special. The scars I gain give me the privilege of deciding what I will sacrifice next. God fits his fingers into my ribs and caresses my heart so that I shudder with the heat of it. He rests his thumbs on my chest like heavier truer lungs to mock my wheezing bags. He spits poison into my eyes and down my throat. The fluid in my spine is pressed from red hot grapes. He holds me up to humble the powerful and the vain and the spiteful and the cruel and the greedy. Many have tried to kill me yet I persist like the cockroach. A fly could crush me yet thousands live and die in the shadow of my mythology. I am shameless in my survival but have turned down the deals that would remove beauty from my life. I live by the kindness of others.

As for your little bug spot, survival is strategic. Some battles are pointless. Others are crucial. If playing dead doesn't work, and thrashing reflexively doesn't work, try dancing.

To put it another way, you can make a wall to protect yourself, but you must make sure the light can reach the green thing you were sheltering, or you will be steward of a dead and wilted nothing.