{"author":"M.B. Dallocchio","author_id":"M.B.+Dallocchio","total_quotes":34,"quotes":[{"text":"If anyone thinks interracial 'anything' is a big deal, they're probably inbred.","author":"M.B. Dallocchio","tags":["bigotry","interracial","racism","racism-in-the-west"],"id":44326,"author_id":"M.B.+Dallocchio"},{"text":"The most insidious of our country, the greediest and highest rung of our socioeconomic ladder, line their pockets with misappropriated funds as military personnel and hordes of civilians are maimed or killed. It’s not their children out there, blinded by manufactured patriotism or lured into the service with the promise of economic stability, all with the sanctimonious blessings of misguided public consent by way of corporate, state-sponsored media. It won’t be their children who are terrorized by Wahabbist insurgents tearing through city blocks and rural areas as only an ever-devouring plague could. It won’t be any of their loved ones watching thousands of years of civilization unraveling like an old sweater as each thread of wool is lit on fire or stolen to sell on the black market for greedy consumers with a fetish for hijacked Mesopotamian artifacts.","author":"M.B. Dallocchio","tags":["colonialism","corruption","exploitation","government","military","oligarchy","plutocracy","trauma","war"],"id":46195,"author_id":"M.B.+Dallocchio"},{"text":"Whether it’s an Iraqi widow mourning her dead loved ones standing helplessly in the rubble of her former home or a dying soldier in an Iraqi city street asking, “Why, God? Why is this happening? Where are you?” I can’t help but wonder the same. You realize that there is no justice, no karmic retribution swift enough, and that happy endings are a terrible, terrible lie. We are all subject to the same blind boot stomp and our luck is merely where we happen to be standing when death inevitably comes roaring down upon us.","author":"M.B. Dallocchio","tags":["atheism","death","god","iraq-war","karma","ptsd","trauma","war"],"id":47562,"author_id":"M.B.+Dallocchio"},{"text":"Czechs simply don’t say they’re going camping or spending time outdoors. They say, in Czech, that they are going “into the nature” as though nature, příroda, is beyond a place in the woods or other forms of terrain, that nature was a state of mind and had the ability to reverse the crippling, chaotic aspects of life.","author":"M.B. Dallocchio","tags":["czech-republic","czech-wanderlust","nature","priroda","travel"],"id":75491,"author_id":"M.B.+Dallocchio"},{"text":"Ramadi’s sky was generously filled with stars. Celestial ornaments set against a banner of a deep blue velvet sky. It was a place where hell, death, and heaven were so clear and the closest I’ve felt to all three in my life.","author":"M.B. Dallocchio","tags":["death","heaven","hell","iraq","iraq-war","ramadi"],"id":86941,"author_id":"M.B.+Dallocchio"},{"text":"A moving target is harder to kill, and I didn't stop running, maneuvering, until I reached home base, where I could breathe between death-defying sprints. I just need to make it home alive, and this will all be over, I told myself. Home.","author":"M.B. Dallocchio","tags":["army","home","iraq","ptsd","survival","trauma","veteran","war"],"id":87309,"author_id":"M.B.+Dallocchio"},{"text":"I have been cheated out of being treated like a human being. In my reflection I saw an empty vessel. They had cheated me and I was desperate to make the sharp pain in my head stop.","author":"M.B. Dallocchio","tags":["emptiness","human-nature","humanity","racism","rage"],"id":110872,"author_id":"M.B.+Dallocchio"},{"text":"With even the slightest upset, detachment soon followed. I didn’t lose sleep over men, and I was too restless to be tied down. The grass didn’t even have time to grow around my feet before I was planning my next escape – whether it was to another state or out of someone’s life.","author":"M.B. Dallocchio","tags":["break-ups","departure","escapism","flight-or-fight","heartbreak","loss","love","lovers","ptsd","relationships","single-life","single-woman"],"id":125013,"author_id":"M.B.+Dallocchio"},{"text":"Fine art is the discipline of breaking rules.","author":"M.B. Dallocchio","tags":["art","artist","artistic","break-the-rules","discipline","fine-art","rules","rules-to-live-by"],"id":147199,"author_id":"M.B.+Dallocchio"},{"text":"A wave of saudade swept over me as I realized home never existed at all. The concept of home felt far from my reach, and I felt sick with longing.","author":"M.B. Dallocchio","tags":["escapism","home","ptsd","saudade","trauma","wanderlust","war"],"id":164185,"author_id":"M.B.+Dallocchio"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":34,"pages":4,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}