Wild, Beautiful, and Free

by Sophfronia Scott

Now you can go round here feeling bad like I seen you doing, or you can walk like you loved. Nobody can touch that

Madame didn’t deserve it. She didn’t deserve to have so much of me. But, I decided, that wouldn’t stop me from hoping bad things might happen to her all on their own.

“But I know my own value,” I said as I pulled away from him. “I’m not afraid to be alone, because it is what I have always been. I know how to be apart and solitary and still know that I am loved.”

“You don’t know or have any respect for who you are. I can’t be expected to make up that deficit for you.”

“I pity you, but I can’t enter this jail with you.”

That was what I needed: Help. Divine help and loving aid. I had to believe it would come. And because I believed it, I felt calmer. I fell into a deep and nourishing sleep.

“I wouldn’t want to think like white people do. If being lighter means I might see myself as better than someone else, I don’t want no part of that.”

Seemed like humans were killing humans so that humans could have the right to be humans.