Molly

“Bugle"

Black beetles know where the most recent bones
bake in the heat, tendons and meat long gone,
bleached white, and if you give them cheap wine --
drizzle a few red drops on a flat stone--
they will lead you to a barren gulch
surrounded by sages and nettles, dirt
burnt to powdery sand and sharp thorns. Hunch
above the skeleton, bow your head, start reciting verses you learned as a child, there, under the sun with rocks and brush, bare
locust tree a telling reliquary
of dust to dust, all so brutally hot.
You must pull ribs from that rotting body,
words that matter: love me, love me not.”
― Tod Marshall

“This is the way we’re taught early in our lives about how to interpret pain. When we experience pain, the way the people around us respond to it then teaches us to respond in a similar way.”
― John C. Parkin, F**k It: The Ultimate Spiritual Way

“Don't promote yourself as a country of constitutionality and compassion if you honestly believe that putting people in prison and treating them like animals is justified. Stop all the hype that we live in a free and democratic society. I used to ramble on about the same stuff. But now—are we really a country that believes in fairness and compassion? Are we really a country that treats people fairly?

I've met good men—yes, good men—in prison who made mistakes out of stupidity or ignorance, greed, or just bad judgment, but they did not need to be sent to prison to be punished; eighteen months for catching too many fish; two years for inflating income on a mortgage application; three months for selling a whale's tooth on eBay; fifteen years for a first-time nonviolent drug conspiracy in which no drugs were found or seized. There are thousands of people like these in our prisons today, costing American taxpayers billions of dollars when these individuals could be punished in smarter, alternative ways.

Our courts are overpunishing decent people who make mistakes, and our prisons have no rewards or incentives for good behavior. In this alone criminal justice and prison systems contradict their own mission statements (244).”
― Bernard B. Kerik

“You are the heirs of infinite love and light. Come out my friend. Come out from the narrow lanes of darkness. Come out into the vivacious light of the day where all the glory resides. Come out, O lions, and shake off the ancient mysticism and prejudices. You are the most fascinating expression of Mother Nature. Your soul is the expression of the whole Universe. All the power in the universe is born with you in your biology. Recognize them, realize them and ultimately utilize them in the pursuit of spreading love, harmony and peace.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Islamophobic Civilization: Voyage of Acceptance