The Color Purple

by Alice Walker

I look at women, tho, cause I’m not scared of them.

But I just say, Never mine, never mine, long as I can spell G-o-d I got somebody along.

I just be thankful to lay eyes on her.

First time I got the full sight of Shug Avery long black body with it black plum nipples, look like her mouth, I thought I had turned into a man.

You know the worst part? she say. The worst part is I don’t think he notice. He git up there and enjoy himself just the same. No matter what I’m thinking. No matter what I feel. It just him. Heartfeeling don’t even seem to enter into it.

If you was my wife, she say, I’d cover you up with kisses stead of licks, and work hard for you too.

Nobody ever love me, I say. She say, I love you, Miss Celie. And then she haul off and kiss me on the mouth.

I kiss her back, say, um, too. Us kiss and kiss till us can’t hardly kiss no more. Then us touch each other.

Let ’im hear me, I say. If he ever listened to poor colored women the world would be a different place, I can tell you.

You mean it want to be loved, just like the bible say. Yes, Celie, she say. Everything want to be loved.

Not a blade of corn (how it do that?) not the color purple (where it come from?).

Look at you. You black, you pore, you ugly, you a woman. Goddam, he say, you nothing at all.

I’m pore, I’m black, I may be ugly and can’t cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I’m here. Amen, say Shug. Amen, amen.

Well, I say, if words could kill, I’d be in the ambulance.

Celie, she say, Do you love me? She down on her knees by now, tears falling all over the place. My heart hurt so much I can’t believe it.

How can it keep beating, feeling like this?

But I’m a woman. I love you, I say. Whatever happen, whatever...

He say, Celie, tell me the truth. You don’t like me cause I’m a man? I blow my nose. Take off they pants, I say, and men look like frogs to me. No matter how you kiss ’em, as far as I’m concern, frogs is what they stay.

Sometimes I think Shug never love me. I stand looking at my naked self in the looking glass. What would she love? I ast myself. My hair is short and kinky because I don’t straighten it anymore. Once Shug say she love it no need to. My skin dark. My nose just a nose. My lips just lips. My body just any woman’s body going through the changes of age. Nothing special here for nobody to love. No honey colored curly hair, no cuteness. Nothing young and fresh. My heart must be young and fresh though, it feel like it blooming blood.