Arielle Mcquirk

“They believed us and perished for it. Our statecraft, our learning
Delivered them bound to the Pit and alive to the burning
Whither they mirthfully hastened as jostling for honour -
Not since her birth has our Earth seen such worth loosed upon her.
Nor was their agony brief, or once only imposed on them.
The wounded, the war-spent, the sick received no exemption:
Being cured they returned and endured and achieved our redemption,
Hopeless themselves of relief, till Death, marvelling, closed on them.
That flesh we had nursed from the first in all cleanness was given
To corruption unveiled and assailed by the malice of Heaven -
By the heart-shaking jests of Decay where it lolled on the wires -
To be blanched or gay-painted by fumes - to be cindered by fires -
To be senselessly tossed and retossed in stale mutilation
From crater to crater. For this we shall take expiation.
But who shall return us the children?”
― Rudyard Kipling, War Stories and Poems

“People who don’t know our city or our officers might conclude these people were targeted BECAUSE they were black.”
― Mark M. Bello, Betrayal In Black

“You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place, I told him, like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way ever again.”
― Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

“Attractive, blonde, skinny, a little slutty, and… well, I kind of talked to her about you. She’s already keen. You should be able to slide straight into second base.’ Mags laughed again. Nathan didn’t. It had been a while. And then some. He glanced over to the wardrobe. Maybe the dark blue shirt.”
― Barry Kirwan, When the children come