#BlackLivesMatter #poem “You is kind,” she say, “you is smart. You is important.”

Last page of The Help.

 

And then she say it, just like I need her to. “You is kind,” she say, “you is smart. You is important.”

But at the same time feeling, in a way, that I’m free, like Minny. Freer than Miss Leefolt, who so locked up in her own head she don’t recognize herself when she read it…

I head down the hot sidewalk at eight thirty in the morning wondering what I’m on do with the rest a my day. The rest a my life. I am shaking and crying and a white lady walk by frowning at me. The paper gone pay me ten dolars a week, there’s the book money plus a little more coming. Still it ain’t enough for me to the rest a my life on…

The sun is bright but my eyes wide open. I stand at the bus stop like I been doing for forty-odd years. In thirty minutes, my whole life’s …done. Maybe I ought to keep writing, not just for the paper, but something else, about all the people I know and the things I seen and done. Maybe I ain’t too old to start over, I think and I laugh and cry at the same time at this. Cause just last night I thought I was finished with everything new.

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