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I do realize that there is a fine bit of irony in the architecture of oppression granting me a measure of peace, but keep in mind I was not always the woman awoken to the dynamics of power I became during my tenure at Miss Preston’s.
Folks are, at their heart, selfish, and anything they tell you is more often than not designed to meet their own goals. I know, because I ain’t any different.
But the problem about starting a new life is you bring your old self with you.
Nothing good ever comes of withholding the truth.
But when I am dressed and looking my best, I feel like I actually have power over something. And even the smallest feeling of security is a comfort in a brutal, unforgiving world.
I realize, as the last of the sun sinks below the plains in a brilliant show of pink and orange, that I will forever be alone. Because that’s how a killer survives.
So I raise my sickles, and do what I must. Swiftly.
I will never let myself love someone again.
How does one go on when they’ve lost their heart? By being heartless.
That is the problem with fear—it is like wildfire, traveling fast and hot, leaving only ashes behind.
“I promise that there is nothing going on except that this town is about to be overrun. And at some point you folks will think the answer yet again is to throw us colored girls at another problem of your own making.”
We can fight together or we can die alone.
But now, every time I do something questionable, I hear Katherine’s voice in the back of my head—Jane, what an awful thing to do and Jane, you are better than this in that way she has—and I get all twisted up.
“Sometimes, when the world doesn’t make sense, it’s easier to pretend like there are other forces at work. But there ain’t. That’s just life.”
“It’s the American way,” she would say, watching from the porch as another family took up residence at Rose Hill. “You help as much as you can—but no more. You don’t think those founding fathers wrote all those pretty words about independence just to help the poor, do you? The books are right there in the library, Jane. They did it because they didn’t want to pay taxes, to have some king tell them the price of tea. And for that, they went to war, and hundreds of people died. If that ain’t capitalism, I don’t know what is.”
you may be a genius, but you have very little common sense. I hope you live long enough to regret this.”
It has occurred to me that I see him because I’m going mad, because there ain’t no other explanation, but that doesn’t mean he is full of nonsense. Besides, I could use a little otherworldly guidance right about now.
“Well, hell,” Sue swears.
Alone and heartbroken, I die.
He is trying to protect me, in the simple way men are always trying to protect women: by stealing away their freedom.
“Darling, disappointment is the only sure thing in this world.”
How can we make the world a better place if we are always at odds with one another for every single kind of reason under the sun?
This world may hate the Negro, but that is who I am. I do not care about the story my skin tells. I am a colored woman, and I will not let them make me hate myself.
After a year of mourning my friend she has returned from the dead. And I have no idea what to do with that.
Sometimes the people we love fiercest leave the world like a whisper.
